


Devil's Own

by PLNunn



Category: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: M/M, Post Advent Children
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-17
Updated: 2016-09-26
Packaged: 2018-06-09 02:20:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 23
Words: 118,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6885247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PLNunn/pseuds/PLNunn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a post Advent Children world, Cloud runs afoul of an ex Shinra Black ops agent with a taste for blood, and the taint of Jenova cells.  His obsession with Cloud is fueled by more than his own brand of madness, but by a niggling voice in his head and a will struggling to find its own way back from the lifestream where it was scattered.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This tale takes place directly after the events of my FF7 doujinshi "Fever Dreams', which can be found at plnunn.com.
> 
> Having read the doujinshi is not required to pick up on the events of this sprawling story.

Cloud woke up to a racket of indeterminable cause coming from downstairs. His first reaction, before sleep had even cleared from his brain was to roll and grab for the hilt of his sword. But the sword wasn’t there and he wasn’t on his bedroll on hard ground, but in a bed in a room over the bar where a man didn’t need to keep weapons at hand when he slept. At least he tried to keep telling himself that. He caught himself mid-roll and took a precious moment to clear his head and recognize the noise and the booming voice drifting up from below as friend not foe.  
Barret. Back after two months of field work scouting out new sources of fuel for a world deprived for the most part of the old one. Now that ShinRa wasn’t drawing raw mako from the planet anymore, more traditional sources of power were needed. Fossil fuels for one were making a big comeback, a dozen or more small companies sprouting up and frantically scouring the planet for pockets of oil and coal. ShinRa didn’t have the monopoly anymore, and though the greatly reduced corporate monster had its claws into the new thirst for oil, it was also rumored that its researchers were busily developing alternate sources of energy.  
If Cid, Vincent and Yuffie hadn’t already left on buisiness of their own, they could have had a rousing little reunion that didn’t involve the battling of megabeasts and the salvation of cities. But Yuffie had taken off soon after she’d returned with Cid to 7th Heaven yesterday with Cloud’s cut from the mission she’d dragged them all into, claiming to have business in Utai. Cid and Vincent had left much later in the night, after a good amount of beer and whisky on Cloud and Cid’s part and a great deal of patient silence on Vincent’s. With the gil from Yuffie’s venture in hand, Cid had a few upgrades he wanted to make to the Sierra and there seemed an unspoken agreement that Vincent might make the run with him.  
Cloud had gone to bed a little bit drunk and because of it a little bit nostalgic over the departure. His head was clear this morning though, and the aches and pains of the last few days seemed to have vanished. His metabolism was extraordinarily fast at healing ills. One of the rare benefits of having been the subject of ShinRa experimentation. ShinRa Soldiers were nothing if not durable. And the special Soldiers, the ones that had had a little bit of the Jenova element mixed up with their own genetic make-up’s, well they were downright eerie in the things their bodies were capable of.  
Cloud didn’t like to think about it. He couldn’t help it sometimes when cuts and wounds that should have taken weeks to disappear melted away in a matter of days. The slice on his throat was gone this morning. Almost as if it had never been there. As if it had indeed been a figment of his nightmares.  
But it hadn’t and he frowned at himself in the mirror over the bathroom sink as he reminded himself of that uneasy fact. He took a very quick shower, pulled on a faded T-shirt and a pair of jeans and walked downstairs with beads of water still dripping from the ends of unruly hair.  
Barret was surrounded by a group of children, all clustered about a table which was scattered with various treasures he’d collected during his trip. There were bits of polished rock, odd little carvings, a few rather interesting fossils, trinkets Barret had picked up in the towns and settlements he had passed through, little jars of jams and preserves and candied fruits and nuts that the kids were always ravenous for. Marlene was in high spirits, glued to the big man’s side, asking to hear the story about how he’d found this trinket or that one.  
Cloud wondered to the table and glanced over the heads of the kids to the assorted treasure-trove. Barret grinned at him, well pleased with himself.  
“Kicked ass on this job.” Barret answered the question Cloud hadn’t asked. “Got a damned big commission, plus a bonus from Bigtooth Company for securing that field. Had to fight off the competition, too.” He held up one thickly muscled arm and displayed what looked to be a healing bullet wound through the meaty part of the bicep. “I earned that bonus.”  
Cloud half smiled at the proud way Barret showed off his battle scars, like a kid back from the playground with a bloody nose and victory over the bully that had given it to him.  
He left Barret to the mercy of the kids, bypassing the prospect of coffee and a free breakfast at the bar in favor of spending a little of the hard earned gil he’d kept for himself at the aftermarket parts shop he liked to frequent up in sector 4. In cleaning Fenrir’s carb yesterday he’d discovered a little more wear on the atomizer and needlejet than he was comfortable with, considering the hard usage he put the bike through, and the banjo union on the fuel inlet could probably use replacing if he was going back in.  
Contentedly contemplating a morning browsing in the chop shops and a peaceful afternoon working on Fenrir, Cloud strolled among the rest of the pedestrians on their way to work or busily attending to errands along the central avenue that wound around the hub of Midgar. The public railway which used to be the quickest route between sectors, still wasn’t up and operational after the cataclysm. It might never be again, if big money wasn’t thrown at it and who had big money these days, with ShinRa down to bare bones and no cohesive government stepping in to take its place.  
Midgar was on its own. But the people survived, as people tended to do, even without the all powerful guiding hand of ShinRa to tell them how to do it.  
ShinRa was stirring though, especially with Rufus back from the brink of death after the miraculous cure of the geostigma. There was more of a ShinRa presence in the upper sectors, nowadays, at least that was the word that trickled down to the slums. That seemed to cheer the middle class folks, who craved the assurances and more importantly the protections ShinRa security could offer. The city had gone without a cohesive law enforcement arm for over two years now and there were simply some sections of town you didn’t go unless you were prepared to put your life on the line. The wealthier sectors had hired private security. The poorer ones, like sector 5 where Tifa had reestablished 7th Heaven, made due with freelancers, ex-ShinRa security, lowrent muscle and the god’s own luck. Merchants, Tifa among them, paid monthly for a full time crew of security that loosely tried to uphold the peace, even if the majority of the city’s laws had gone out the window, along with the ruling class.  
And though Cloud could have cared less if Rufus Shinra fell off a cliff tomorrow, he supposed a modified ShinRa government was better than the total anarchy that a city the size of Midgar would eventually fall into without some sort of political structure. God knew who else was equipped to tackle the job.  
Cloud got coffee in a styrofoam cup from a vendor and piece of sweet, crisp bread and consumed it as he walked. Someone bumped into him hard, in passing and it was only by the sheer grace of infallible reflexes that he avoided spilling hot liquid on his T-shirt. He glanced back, glaring as the man who’d collided with him proceeded on without even a backwards glance. But he caught a glimpse of profile and a flash of a stark, black lined tattoo from beneath the swaying fringe of a leather shoulder guard. The face meant nothing, but the tat struck a distant chord of memory. A snake consuming its tail, coiled around a three pronged blade. He stood there staring for a moment, long after the man had melted into obscurity with the morning crowd.  
It wasn’t an official Soldier symbol, but he was sure he’d seen its like back when he’d been drawing a check from the Company. He couldn’t recall where or what it represented, and the lack of memory irked him, but then again, there were a lot of things that still remained in a fog from those years. He licked off the drop of coffee that had spilled onto his hand from the collision, pushing the question from his mind. No use dwelling on a thing that had absolutely no impact upon him, and would only frustrate him with its elusiveness.  
Neon signs and dangling exhaust pipes, disenfranchised motor cycle chassis’, shining chrome wheel wells and various other cannibalized parts decorated the outside of Hoytt’s Hog Heaven. Inside the place was crammed to overflowing with what at first glance seemed to be towering walls of junk, but upon closer inspection were viable parts either refurbished to perfection or waiting to be tackled by Hoytt himself. The man was a mechanic of mythic proportions. If it ran on two wheels he knew it inside and out, could tune it, sup it up, modify it, repair it, paint it, or do whatever else an imaginative customer might require.  
Without him Fenrir wouldn’t be half the bike it was and Cloud was halfway in love with the skinny, bearded, incense smelling Hoytt, because of it. The man was a moterbike guru.  
He weeded his way past accumulated parts, parked bikes, and cartons of various scavenged stock. There was a much scuffed, very cluttered counter at the back, and beyond that garage where Hoytt could usually be found.  
He was there now working on a monster of a desert bike. Cloud made a circuit of it admiringly. The engine alone was a beast of massive proportions.  
“Nice.” Cloud ran fingers across a shining chassis and Hoytt looked up from the other side, only just noting he wasn’t alone.  
“Oh. Hey, man. Isn’t she a beaut? She could give Fenrir a run for the money, eh?” Hoytt’s eyes were perpetually large pupiled, most likely from whatever mood altering substance he packed his hand rolled cigarettes with. Cloud shrugged, something bordering on paternal pride over his bike disagreeing with that assumption.  
“I’m overhauling the carb. I need a few parts.”  
“Sure thing.” Hoytt wiped grease streaked hands on filthy overalls, and rose. “New or rebuilt.”  
“New if you’ve got them.” Cloud told the man what he needed and Hoytt knowing that Cloud would settle only for the best of the best when it came to his bike, brought out the high quality stuff. Cloud didn’t bother to dicker over the price. For starters, being a regular customer, Hoytt wouldn’t screw him over, secondly Cloud wasn’t much for bartering. He handed over the gil, and hung around a while longer, watching Hoytt work his magic with the desert bike engine.  
An hour later, he was on his way back towards sector 7. He went straight for the garage and sat to work disassembling the carb that he had spent a good portion of the day yesterday putting back together. It was work he enjoyed though, and the day sped by, the work going quickly since all the pieces and parts were sparkling clean.  
It wasn’t quite dusk when a harassed looking Tifa slid the garage door open and stalked inside.  
“Those idiots!” She complained without preamble. She didn’t seem agitated to the point that he thought he’d need to draw a weapon to help solve her idiot problem, so he simply sat on the canvas next to the bike, waiting for further clarification.  
“Bobo and Beaver got into a fight with the bouncers up at Landmine’s and came out on the loosing side. They’ve called in sick and it’s an hour till the Friday night rush starts.”  
Bobo and Beaver were 7th Heaven’s weekend muscle. The bar was relatively quiet on weeknights, but on Friday and Saturday nights when folks had paychecks to burn and workweek tensions to release the place boomed. And being closer to the slums and the dead zones than higher sector establishments, Tifa got a rougher trade. It had gotten worse since the cataclysm, what with the lack of proper law and the desperation of a population striving to simply survive without mako energy to make their lives easier. No doubt Tifa was pulling out her hair. She could loose more than she made if the bar got trashed. Even with bouncers, there was usually a brawl or two. Bobo and Beaver were generally slow and stupid, as far as Cloud was concerned, but big enough to man handle and intimidate the run of the mill trouble-causing patron and toss the conflict out onto the street before it got too bad inside.  
“Barret’s agreed to do door duty. Please, please, please could you work the inside tonight? Free drinks. My eternal gratitude. Unless you’re still feeling out of sorts from the venom . . .?”  
He would have agreed without the bribery. The concern about the venom made him cringe.  
“Let me wash up.”  
“You’re okay?”  
He gave her a look and she held up both hands in a peacemaking gesture. “‘Kay. ‘Kay, sorry I asked. Grouch.” But she smiled and left with a lighter step.  
He left his work where it was, extracted one of his smaller swords from where the lot of them were nestled inside the side panels of the bike, and slid it into a leather sheath. He doubted he’d need weaponry to deal with any problem that walked into 7th Heaven, but he hated to be unprepared, regardless. He’d stow the sword behind the bar along with the rest of the more dangerous weapons that Barret would check at the door. Tifa allowed in the small stuff, what barkeep who wanted to keep her clientele wouldn’t in this day and age? But she drew a line at weapons of mass destruction, the types of things that could take out a room full of people in a few heartbeats. At least among patrons that she didn’t consider bosom buddies.  
He walked down the narrow street to the bar’s back entrance and went upstairs, showered and changed into black jeans and the black, sleeveless sweater that was his favorite. He didn’t bother with the shoulder guard, since he wouldn’t be wearing the sheath across his back. He came down the back stairs, where Tifa had boxes of booze, glasses and chairs in need of repair stacked against the wall. There were already a dozen or more patrons in the bar and Tifa and her extra counter help were drawing beer from the tap and pouring shots from bottles of amber and clear booze.  
Cloud stowed the sword under the bar, next to somebody’s automatic machine pistol.  
Tifa gave him a nod and a smile, inclining her chin towards the beer tap in inquiry. He shook his head negatively. He didn’t need to start drinking this early or he’d be wasted before the end of the night. His body might be uncannily fast, strong and adept at healing wounds, but nothing ShinRa’s bloody scientists had ever done to him had helped him hold his liquor any better than the next man. Tifa could drink him under the table if she tried, but that talent sort of came part and parcel with owning a tavern.  
He took a seat on one of the barstools, his back to the bar. The front door was propped open, letting in cool evening air. Barret was perched on a stool just inside, legs propped upon a crate, looking more intimidating than both Bobo and Beaver combined with his bulging muscles, his glower and the dull metal of the gatling gun grafted onto his right arm. He nodded to Cloud, giving him a broad, white toothed grin.  
Barret was an old hand at the bouncer thing. He’d been helping Tifa out for years, even back when Avalanche had been working full tilt to bring ShinRa’s mako draining reactors to a standstill. Sometimes, Cloud figured Barret knew Tifa better than he did, regardless of having grown up in the same hometown, but then Cloud wasn’t much of a people person and despite all appearances, despite the gruff exterior, Barret was.  
When the distant sound of factory horns dully pierced the evening air, the city drew in her breath, waiting for the expulsion of men and women onto its streets. The lamps outside the bar were just beginning to flicker on with encroaching darkness when the patrons began trickling in. The noise grew, as men called to acquaintances, as stories and jokes were exchanged, as drinks were called for, chairs scraped across the floor, gil clinking as it changed hands, the clacking of glass mugs, the sloshing of liquid and the simple movement of men and clothing and buckles and boots upon the floor joined together to make a symphony of harsh sound.  
Another Friday night at 7th Heaven. A few weapons were checked, but most of these men had only smaller knives, billyclubs or cheap, single shot handguns for self-protection, if anything at all. It was the late crowd that would bring trouble with it, the gang-bangers and predators that made weekend bar-hopping and trouble-making a regular routine.  
A few neighborhood whores sauntered in, Annie among them, for drinks and laughs in between johns. Cloud sipped on his first beer of the night and stoically endured being hit on by Annie and the startlingly well-endowed friend she’d come in with. They went away eventually, drawn by the lure of paying customers.  
There was a commotion at the door, Loud protestations about the weapons check by a group of newcomers that clustered outside the open bar door, way blocked by Barret’s thick arm. He could hear snippets of foul language and not all of it came from the mouths of the would be patrons. He was about to saunter over and give Barret a little back up, when somebody caved, and with collective grumblings, a dangerous assortment of weaponry was handed over. Cloud did go over then, to help deposit the lot of it behind the bar. There were some scavenged, rebuilt, hi-tech weaponry, assault rifles, machine pistols, a gunblade and an old wicked four-foot double edged saber that actually had materia filling one of the niches in its hilt. A valuable piece.  
“That’s not here when I leave, blood’ll spill.” A wiry, rat-faced man gave Cloud a meaningful stare. His companions laughed, a low ripple of dark amusement that hinted that the treat was not an idle one.  
Cloud didn’t bother with a reply, simply dumping his load on the bartop for Tifa to stow away behind it. She gave him a slight frown, her gaze following the newcomers as they moved like a pack across the bar, bullying a group of factory workers away from the round table in the far corner.  
Her concern was not unwarranted. There were half a dozen of them, and from their clothing, and the sort of weaponry they carried, they were probably wastelanders come into the city for a little hell-raising. Gangs of such men roamed the desert preying on caravans and travelers, surviving on what they stole, taking pleasure in fear and havoc. ShinRa used to send out periodic patrols to cull their numbers. There was no one to quell their activities now, save competent bodyguards and well-armed merchants. Cloud had run into their likes on many occasion during the course of transport jobs and thus, done his own small bit in curbing their numbers.  
The lot of them wore leathers and mismatched bits of armor, all of it patched and scuffed from usage. There was scarring on flesh as well, not all of it incidental. Patterns and symbols were burned, cut and inked into exposed flesh, making them seem all the more feral than the normal folk inside the bar.  
But other than intimidating their way into the best booth in the bar, they didn’t seem intent on causing trouble, only occasionally making loud comments about the lousy choice of music on the jukebox, or about the watered down quality of the liquor. After a while, Cloud gave up giving them his full attention.  
“Watered down, my ass.” Tifa grumbled from behind the bar, as she sat a newly filled mug of frothy beer on the counter next to him. “How would a bunch of desert rats like them know good quality booze, anyway?”  
Cloud half smiled at her indignation, and sipped from the beer to hide it. Tifa took the quality of her product seriously.  
“Its been a good night, so far.” She said, taking a moment to lean on the countertop and catch her breath. “I’ll be able to line up some help for tomorrow night, so you won’t have to sit here among all these people all night again. You know, you haven’t said a word to anybody, me and Barret included, all night. It wouldn’t hurt to talk once in a while. You know, share opinions, tell stories, ask questions. Respond with actual yes and no’s instead of mute nods.”  
He put the mug down, considered shrugging or giving her a mute nod in response, but didn’t particularly want a continuation of the lecture. “Are you trying to improve my social skills? Its a futile task, you know?”  
She grinned at him, which made his heart patter a little faster and triggered the fight or flight instinct that usually cut in when she got under his defenses.  
“Oh, I know. But I’m a sucker for hopeless causes. Oops, gotta go.” Someone was calling for service down the bar. The noise level in the taproom dropped a few levels as the present song that had been blaring from the jukebox ended.  
There was a squeal from deeper in the room. High Pitched and feminine, sounding more of surprised hurt than riotous exclamation. There was a low ripple of male amusement, a nervous shifting of the more honest patrons as the scent of trouble trembled in the air.  
Annie was sandwiched between the legs of one of the wastelanders at the corner table. Another few men had moved around, boxing her in, shielding whatever they were doing from the rest of the room. Now Annie was usually up to most things a man might invite her to do, but she knew better than to ply her trade in the bar and Cloud had never heard her cry out in pain.  
He slid off the stool, moving through the crowd, slipping past men more interested in their drinks and the friends close at hand than they were at what was happening in the rest of the room, or simply studiously ignoring it. The jukebox speakers blared the opening chords of a fast and furious song. The sort of song you put on earphones and pushed your body or your bike to the limits to. The conversation level rose as people had to lift their voices to be heard over the music.  
He heard a faint, scared moan, barely audible over the jukebox. Saw one of the men across Annie with a lit lighter in his hand and her moan turned into a cry. Cloud didn’t even break stride. Simply caught the man with the lighter by the back of the neck and propelled him two steps into the wall. Face first. The man howled like his nose had been broken, which was quite probable, but Cloud kept his hand on the back of his neck regardless, pressing the wastelander’s face to the wall. There was a surge of indignation from his fellows, The man sitting closest lunged up, producing a bone handled switch blade and slashing at Cloud.  
Cloud caught his wrist, twisted until it was either release his grip on the blade or risk a broken wrist, and deftly relieved the man of the blade. He flung it up with a flick of the wrist and it embedded in the wood of one of the ceiling rafters.  
“You son of a bitch.” The man with the switch blade was the same small, rat-faced one who’d warned Cloud about misplacing his materia-laced sword.  
“Let her go.” Cloud said softly.  
Annie was tear faced, her blouse open, loose string where buttons had been ripped off, dangling. There was a red, blistery burn on her breast, near one big nipple, that she quickly covered as she pulled the edges of her shirt together.  
“What?” The man who still held her between his legs drawled. “She’s a whore. What do you care what she does for a few gil?”  
“I don’t do that,” Annie cried, but low and embarrassed and probably very scared.  
“Ha. As if we’d pay good gil for a dried up old has-been like you.” Another one, sporting long, dreadlocked hair cackled and more laughter followed as they shoved her away.  
“Hell, I’d pay him to spread his legs before I’d waste money on you, bitch.”  
Annie knew when to stand and flirt and when to retreat and now was the time for the later. She stumbled away, clutching her blouse.  
“You’re out,” Cloud said, letting go of the man he’d pinned to the wall and taking a step backwards. “Find someplace else to amuse yourselves.”  
“What? She come to us, looking for a good time. Not our fault she didn’t like what we give her.” A young one taunted.  
They all had that same lean, hungry look. The youngest might have been sixteen, seventeen. The oldest was at least forty. His earlier observation that they moved like a pack was concreted now. They had the eyes of wolves. They moved like pack hunters, hemming in their prey, cutting off escape as they’d done with Annie, as they were trying to do to him, a few of them casually shifting about to stand behind him, a subtle intimidation in the prose of their bodies that would have made most men reflexively step further into the circle of their influence without even realizing they were putting themselves deeper into the fire.  
Cloud didn’t move, eyes slowly traveling over the one’s in front of him, pausing on the man in the farthest corner, the one man that hadn’t made comment or laughed out loud, but had sat leaning with his chair back against the wall, idly rolling a half smoked cigarette between long fingers, watching everything. If the others were ravenous desert wolves, this man was a tundra beast with pale blue eyes and short cropped black hair laced with silver. He radiated a quiet danger, the sort that was hard to pick up on until it was too late and he had his teeth at your throat.  
“Damned if you ain’t a pretty one.” The man behind him, tall and smelling of sweat an beer leaned in over his shoulder, inhaling, drawing his attention from the wolf in the corner. “Clean, too. What’ll you do for a little gil?”  
Cloud might have let the comment slide, if the bastard hadn’t put a hand on his arm, daring to violate a very prickly personal space. Sometimes a body reacted without the mind actually directing it what to do. Sometimes life and death situations called for simple action without thought attached. The indignation had barely registered, before Cloud’s accoster was crashing onto the table, the impact of his weight overturning it and scattering mugs and ashtrays. Someone came at him with a small boot knife and got a fist in the throat for his efforts. He had two more of them down and moaning, before Tifa’s screaming and Barret’s big body wading into the mass of scattering non-combatants broke through his battle instincts.  
“You mother fucker . . .” somebody was gasping, maybe the one with the broken nose. “I’ll see you dead . . . I’ll fuck your corpse . . .“  
There were a chorus of guttural threats, but Tifa had a big double barreled crowd pleaser she kept behind the bar, in her capable hands and Barret had thrust his body into the center of the mess, gatling gun arm prominently displayed.  
“Take it down the street, boys,” Tifa suggested.  
“He started it,” Rat-face sneered. “Why don’t you send him out with us and us and him’ll settle our problems in private?”  
“Because I don’t want to have to clear your bleeding bodies off the street come morning. Now calm down and clear out.”  
Violence trembled in the air, but the man in the corner forestalled it, finishing off his drink and rising. “You heard the lady. The night’s young, eh, boys?”  
The hairs on the back of Cloud’s arms stood up, every instinct he possessed screamed danger before he even noticed the tattoo gracing the lean, hard muscle of the man’s upper arm. Snake consuming itself, wrapped around a death dealing blade.  
Cloud looked up in surprise, meeting eyes so pale a blue they were almost silver and knew as sure as he knew the earth was under his feet that this man dealt death for a living. He wanted his sword in his hands, and Tifa and Barret not standing there witlessly while a killer stalked amongst them. Wanted to recall where he’d seen that tattoo and what it represented, because somehow, someway he knew it represented the heart of this man, who he had encountered twice in one day.  
But, no one was stuck down dead, and the other five followed their pack leader obediently enough, even though muttered threats and dire glares were thrown back Cloud’s way. Barret returned their weapons at the door and stood glaring at their backs as they made their way down the lamplit street.  
The bar settled back to normal, the excitement over, the serious business of drinking and carousing begging to be resumed. A brawl or two was no big deal at 7th Heaven on a Friday night. It was the only trouble that had to be put down this Friday, though. Maybe it was the presence of Barret and Cloud, the reputations of which. any regular knew all too well. There weren’t many in Midgar that hadn’t heard rumors of things past, things that had effected the city so intimately that she’d never revert to her former, mako-fueled glory. Things that effected the planet . . . but then, people didn’t always see past their own front yard. What had happened in Midgar, in front of their own eyes, was what they remembered.  
Regardless, the remainder of the night passed without incident. At two past midnight, Tifa made last call and soon after Barret and Cloud helped the last of the stumbling patrons on their way out the door.  
Cloud had consumed enough beer throughout the course of the night that the lion’s share of his tension over the incident with the wolf pack had dulled. He was buzzed enough to laugh at Barret’s crude jokes as they helped with the nightly cleanup. Chairs were stacked atop tables and the floor mopped, while Tifa collected, cleaned and stacked glasses and mugs and wiped down the bartop. Barret consumed one last beer, but Cloud refused the offer, preferring to be able to walk straight and not wake up hungover.  
“Thanks a lot, guys. It would have been a nightmare without you, tonight.” Tifa sighed, stretching, displaying a fine amount of flat tummy, before sitting down with the cash box before her on the bartop and starting to count out the night’s earnings.  
“Hey, you know I always got your back, Tifa. Cloud, too, right, kid? Ain’t we all always looked out for each other?” Barret laid a thick arm across Cloud’s shoulders, very likely a little more drunk than the clarity of his speech suggested.  
“Yeah, we look out for each other.” Vocal agreement seemed the only thing likely to get him out of Barret’s embrace short of violence.  
“Its just damn good to be home.” Barret sighed, releasing Cloud to go and sit down heavily upon a bar stool.  
“Its good to have you home,” Tifa said softly, gaze shifting beyond Barret to focus on Cloud. And there it went again, the uneasy little hitch in his chest and made him turn away, wondering just how fucked up he was, that he could gladly find comfort from Vincent’s touch and yet the thought of Tifa’s scared him silly.  
“I’ve got a few things to finish up on Fenrir,” He muttered, retrieving his sheathed sword from behind the bar and resting it on one shoulder.  
“Okay. See you tomorrow.” Tifa gave him a wistful little smile. Barret shook his head and mumbled something unintelligible into his beer mug.  
The air outside the bar was a cool relief, even though it stunk of the city. It was Pitch as black above, what with the plate and the overpasses and beams that hid up there in the darkness. The streetlamps were dim patches of illumination along the narrow way. The only thing moving in the shadows was the thrashing tail of a cat on a window cill, as it watching something of interest in the alley below it.  
He was in the midst of opening the garage door when he heard the patter of feet approaching. He paused, glancing over his shoulder, waiting for the approaching figure to show itself before relaxing enough to retreat into the garage. It was a woman. The abundantly endowed prostitute that had been hanging out with Annie earlier in the night. Even at a distance through the darkness, there were the unmistakable lines of horror on her face.  
He shifted his grip on the sword, body reflexively sliding into a state of higher alertness, eyes scanning the shadows behind her. But there was nothing. Just the woman, who’s eyes picked him out of the darkness long after he’d discerned her.  
“Oh, Gods. Gods. You’ve got to help me. Please help me. She’s hurt. Bleeding . . . so much blood . . . help me!” She staggered to a halt, clutching at his arm, fingers curling in his sweater in her panic, hauling at him to follow her even before she’d finished her hysterical entreaty.  
“Who? Who’s hurt?”  
“Its Annie. Annie. You’ve gotta come. Please don’t let her die.”  
A cold knot of suspicion formed in his gut of vengeance’s taken upon a victim at hand instead of the one out of easy reach.  
He let her haul him down the street towards Calamity avenue, the aptly renamed road which led to the worst part of Sector 7. What was left of the buildings there sat at the edge of catastrophe, perched on the lip of a crater filled with the remains of part of Midgar that had caved in upon itself during the destruction two years past. There was nothing there now but a deep Pit filled with wreckage that only the scavengers and junk-misers ventured down to explore.  
The Pit was four blocks down, past what had originally been set up as a temporary, razor-wire topped chain-link blockade. Temporary had turned into years, when no one had the time or wealth to delve into the mess.  
She didn’t take him quite that far, turning down a side street lined with dilapidated public housing, littered with debris and trash that the inhabitants had no inclination to tidy up.  
“Does she live down here?” Cloud asked. He’d had no notion. He realized he knew little more about a woman he’d seen in the bar frequently over the last few years, than what he’d heard from Tifa.  
“No.” The woman gasped, out of breath from the hasty migration here. “But we - you know - do a lot of business here. C’mon. She’s here.”  
They found her in the alcove of a boarded up basement store. The concrete stair well leading down was spattered with dark stains, that could have been anything from oil to blood in the near darkness. The pool of dark around Annie’s crumpled form still glistened though, and even though the deep red wasn’t visible in this light, other senses confirmed that it was blood.  
Cloud ventured down the narrow steps, the woman who’d led him here, remaining on the sidewalk above, whimpering, hands curled over her mouth.  
“We gotta help her. Gotta help her. She’s got kids.” The woman was babbling.  
Cloud didn’t think help was an option. They’d been thorough, the monsters who had been at her. Most of her clothing was gone, ripped aside so that they could get at her flesh. They’d cut her up badly. Done other things that didn’t stand close examination. There were burn marks to match the one she’d gotten in the bar. A great deal of blood on her thighs.  
He felt a little curl of nausea. He’d as much as sent her out into the night when he’d ripped her from their grasp the first time, and then let the pack out after her.  
They’d taken her a good ways from 7th Heaven. Her friend had come a long ways to find him when closer help had to have been on hand.  
He drew a breath, suddenly wanting out of the enclosed space of the basement stairwell. He moved up the steps, stepping past the woman to scan the dark street, the black holes of doorways and windows and alley mouths.  
“Why did you come to find me?” He asked.  
“She - ? Is she - gone?”  
He stared at her, hard. Then nodded.  
Fresh tears leaked down cheeks already stained with black mascara. She shook her head, plainly scared.  
“Why come looking for me?” he repeated the question.  
“Because - -”  
Something flashed in the darkness, the spinning shimmer of something deadly. Cloud shoved the woman down the steps where Annie’s corpse rested, and dove the other way himself. He heard the grating sound of blade striking stone, but didn’t bother to try and track down its landing point. He flung the sheath off his sword, rolling to his feet and bringing the flat side of the blade up even as some sixth sense warned him of the spray of death that approached.  
Bullets hit the blade, about the same time he actually registered the pop pop pop of gunfire, jarring his arm. He deflected them, senses going into the sort of hyper-reality that sent the rest of the world into a shadowed haze around the tunnel vision that focused on the threat at hand. He tracked the shooter from the spark of muzzle flare and bounded off an entrance way stoop, to the battered fire escape where the man with the gun perched. He didn’t bother aiming for the man, simply sliced through the rusted metal of the platform where he stood and sent the whole thing crashing down. The shooter pushed himself free from the falling wreckage, shooting wildly as he fell, bullets spattering the facade of the old building. Cloud twisted, dodging the spray, bringing the sword up as another one dropped at him from out of the sky.  
They came quick, like a pack, no single one of them good enough to even come close to breaching his defenses, but as group, they drove him backwards, down the street towards the razor-wire fence that cordoned off the Pit.  
He didn’t show them any more mercy than they’d shown Annie, and a trail of bleeding corpses littered the street behind him. There were more of them than the half dozen who’d amused themselves a the bar, though he saw glimpses of faces that he half recognized from there. The rat-faced one cackling down at him from the top of a gutted second story building that teetered right on the edge of the Pit, swinging the relic of a materia loaded saber and releasing a surge of fire energy that was laughably weak. Easy enough simply to leap up and let it pass harmlessly by beneath him. It cut a swath through the chain-link fence and dissipated in the pitch darkness of the Pit.  
Cloud landed on a cross section of I-beam jutting out over the lip of the pit, part of the remains of the superstructure that had supported the plate that had been the ground of this sector and the ceiling of the sub-sector beneath. He had every intention of launching himself up and taking Rat-face out, but something came at him from street level, faster than he could visually track. Reflexes took over and he launched himself backwards instead of up, narrowly avoiding what might very well have been the oversized lid of a garbage bin.  
The distant cackling of Rat-face reached his ears. He shifted his focus, looking for the man that had hurled that big-ass piece of metal. There were a handful of heartbeats of still air, unblemished by the sound of conflict, as the pack leader slipped out of the shadow of a building, as the pack, or what Cloud had left of them, melted out of their niches behind him.  
Cloud realized he was in a place he very much did not wish to be, perched upon an untrustworthy beam twenty feet out over the black depths of the Pit. That they’d driven him there on purpose seemed self-evident.  
He looked for an out, and the only one that presented itself was forward, but even as he was calculating the easiest way though, a flurry of death was launched at him, en masse.  
Gunfire burst loose, and another weak blast of fire materia from the rooftop where Rat-face was. Cloud hissed and leapt to the side towards a barely visible, twisted beam ten feet below his present perch and twenty feet over. He didn’t see the pack leader until the man was upon him, faster than any normal, un-enhanced human being had any right being. The dully gleaming edge of an arm blade that extended two foot behind the back of the man’s elbow and a foot beyond the fist that gripped the hilt of the weapon, slashed towards his mid-section, followed by a secondary slash from the blade attached the other forearm. He barely brought up his sword in time to block it. The twin impacts were unexpected. The power behind them enough to send him staggering, unprepared as he was for that much strength behind the blows. He had too many years of ingrained reflexes to lower his guard, even as he fought for balance. Better to fall than to leave himself open to those blades.  
He recovered, though, and swung the sword fast and low, aiming to take out the man at the knees. He doubted he would score a hit, but being on the offensive gave him some slight advantage. The pack leader jumped and somersaulted backwards, coming down in a crouch with a ear piecing scrape of metal on metal.  
For a split second Cloud met pale blue eyes that seemed almost to glow from within with . . . gods . . . mako fueled madness, then the beam gave way, sheared clear through, and Cloud was falling into darkness. Gunfire followed him and he twisted, concentrating more on avoiding the hail of bullets than finding a safe landing spot. By the time they’d stopped firing, it was too dark to see anyway. Too pitch black to get his bearings and try and save himself by anything more than blind luck.  
He glanced off a protruding something and shut his eyes, letting his body instinctively gain its bearing when sight was denied it. He hit something else. Hard. The breath left his body with a bone-breaking impact. He rebounded, scrambling for purchase and half caught himself on something rusty and downward sloping. Pain shot through his chest, distracting him and he lost his hold and tumbled down. Hit something else before the fall came to a sudden, jarring stop.  
If not for the pain, he might have questioned consciousness, there in the pitch black. But, how could he not be awake, and feel as much hurt as he did?  
Fire came with each breath. It felt as if something inside his chest grated with every stilted intake of air. Ribs broken from that second, hard impact. He shifted his shoulders and bright pain flared behind his eyes.  
Fuck.  
He lay still, trying to get a grip on the hurt, pushing it into a distant place where it wouldn’t interfere with a functioning body. He listened for sounds of pursuit. But there was nothing. Nothing but the faint scratching of rodent claws on rust and the occasional groan of settling debris.  
It occurred to him, after a few minutes of agonizing stillness that he still had the hilt of his sword in a death grip. He almost laughed at that involuntary stubbornness. He’d chance breaking his neck in a blind free fall through tangled debris, but damned if his survival instincts would risk letting go the sword.  
It would have been nice if he could have lain there, shut his eyes and let his body rest, but the chunk of metal he was stretched out upon was damned uncomfortable. Something, a rivet maybe, was biting into his back. He drew as much of a breath as he was able without shifting cracked ribs, and pushed himself up. He pulled his legs up and hissed at a sharp stinging hurt in his right thigh. He slid a hand down and felt wet denim, a rent in the fabric and a jagged slice in the flesh beneath.  
He stared up intently, waiting for pupils to dilate to their widest, for eyes to adjust as much as they were able to this impenetrable darkness. Gradually he began to make out a slightly less dark area of gray above and the bare traces of edges that represented protruding girders, pipes and ragged sheets of metal.  
He hefted the sword, regretting the lack of a sheath he could fasten across his shoulders. He’d make do, having no intention of climbing back up out of the Pit without it.  
He shut his eyes, settling his mind on a course that ignored the pain, then gathered his stamina and made a leap for the indistinct shape of a beam above him. He caught it one handed and swung himself up and over to the edge of a twisted plate. Didn’t hesitate long enough to see if the thing would shift under his weight before bounding up to grasp the next purchase.  
He flung himself over the lip, sword at ready, searching the normal night shadows for sign of attack. But nothing moved along the street, or hid behind accumulated trash or crumbled stone masonry. There was activity down the block though. A vehicle with a steady, dull flashing light atop the cab, a clustering of dark figures about the stair that led down to the basement alcove where he’d found Annie.  
It was the law. Or what passed for the law in sector 7. Someone had finally had the guts to report the disturbance. Maybe Annie’s friend had called them in. He rested the sword across his shoulder, as unthreatening a pose with it as he could manage without a sheath to slip it into, and limped down the street.  
Gods. Now that that his body didn’t have the pretense of possible threat to stave off the hurt, it was starting to ebb over him in throbbing, red-tinged waves. He passed a body sprawled against the curb, lying in a pool of night-blackened blood. One of the pack. His doing.  
“Hey. You.” Somebody more observant than the rest spotted him and a flurry of heads jerked up, searching him out.  
“Stop right there. Drop the sword.” The orders came out simultaneously as spooked men drew weapons. Sector 7 security couldn’t afford the high tech weaponry that ShinRa law used to carry. Oh, they’d scavenged some, bought some off the black market, but mostly they carried older pieces. Drum loaded pistols and billy clubs. The cocking of those old guns was unmistakable.  
Cloud sighed, tired and hurting. He had no more intention of dropping the sword that he did his pants, so he stood there, waiting for them to do something other than stand there pointing guns at him.  
“Put the weapon down.” Someone repeated.  
“There’s another body here. Sliced open from shoulder to hip.” A man called from across the street. Cloud didn’t look that way. Half the men facing him down did, nervously, then back at him with increased agitation.  
“Drop the sword or we shoot, you hear?”  
Their uniforms were patched and mis-matched. There were three dead bodies on the street and a mutilated prostitute at the bottom of the stairs. They weren’t up to this and they knew it and were scared.  
“They,” Cloud moved his free hand slowly, unthreateningly to indicate the bodies on the street. “Attacked me. After they’d killed the woman. I was within my rights.”  
His speaking, instead of standing there in uneasy silence seemed to break the unspoken tension. Seemed to make him more human and less of a murdering wraith out of the Pit.  
“You lower that sword, boy.” One that might have been in charge said, taking the initiative and moving forward. “This ain’t something you just walk away from.”  
Actually, Cloud had hoped for just that. He sighed and swung the sword down, resting the tip on the pavement. There was a collective tensing of lawmen at the movement.  
“It was wastelanders that did this. There are more of them. Maybe you ought to put out the word to keep an eye out for them.”  
They looked among themselves, the idea of wasteland bandits in the city causing trouble no doubt one of their frequent nightmares. They didn’t get the chance to start muttering amongst themselves, distracted instead by the flashing of more lights from up the street.  
It was no beat up truck with jury rigged lights attached to its cab, but a broad ATV, armored and expensive and sporting official Midgar Security logo. Which meant it was under ShinRa employ. A second smaller security car followed, and smartly uniformed city security poured out. They still wore ShinRa blue, even though ShinRa logo had been discreetly removed. Having learned his lessons well, Rufus was being very cautious in sinking his hooks back into Midgar.  
“We got a call,” the officer in charge snapped. “Of multiple homicides.”  
The freelance law shuffled nervously, outclassed and intimidated by the hi-tech toys, the spiffy uniforms and the take-no-prisoners attitude.  
Cloud wasn’t impressed. He’d rather a distaste for ShinRa Blues, they probably had less of a fondness for him, considering how many of them he’d taken out in the past.  
“Is that the suspect?” The Blue officer zeroed in on Cloud and a half dozen state of the art guns swung up to target him.  
“Says there’s a bunch of renegade wastelanders in town. Says they killed that poor woman down there.” The security for hire explained.  
“Is that so?” the Blue made a small jerking motion with his chin and his men fanned out, surrounding Cloud with practiced precision. “Give over your weapon and this matter will be sorted out at the station.”  
He leaned on the sword and stared at the Blue officer. “Since when do you care what goes on down in the slums? Aren’t there rich folks that need their asses wiped in the upper sectors?”  
Little dots of laser scopes peppered his body. He looked down casually, then back up, a faint smile curving his lips.  
“Oh, for god’s sake.” One of the newcomers, who’d remained leaning in the shadows by the second Blue car, pushed himself up and sauntered down the street towards the party.  
Cloud didn’t even need to see that he didn’t wear uniform blue to know that he wasn’t one of the so called ‘City security officers’ He was security all right, but of a much higher, more private nature. The Turks worked directly for the president of ShinRa and those that remained of their number were fiercely loyal to Rufus, for no reason Cloud could figure, other than huge yearly salaries.  
“What have you gotten into now?”  
Cloud narrowed his eyes, focusing past the Blues to the man in the rumpled black suit that strolled towards him. Familiar sharp featured face and red hair. This particular Turk, Cloud had run into quite a few times in the past.  
Reno paused to look down at the body of one of the wastelanders he passed, shook his head, then continued on.  
“Y’know, we’re trying to keep peace in the city and you go about slicing and dicing. The least you could do is keep it off the streets.”  
Cloud thought about saying something snarky back, but responding to Reno’s taunts was only feeding the beast.  
Reno looked over the edge of the stairwell, down to the bloody body at the bottom. He pushed back a few dangling locks of red hair that had escaped the dark glasses that kept the mass of the unruly stuff back from his forehead and whistled softly.  
“Slicing up hookers now, are we?”  
“Fuck off.” Cloud said very softly.  
“He says he didn’t do her.” The sector 7 security captain offered. “Said those guys did it, then attacked him.”  
Reno glanced over his shoulder at Cloud, then back to the local law. “You believe everything suspects say? Even the ones with bloody blades in their hands?”  
There was a renewed rustle of tension at that bald question. Reno smiled, obviously pleased with himself. Cloud wondered what the odds were of getting past the accumulated law and smacking the Turk down, without actually killing any of the freelancers or Blues. He wasn’t quite prepared to go slicing into men that might actually have been honest.  
Reno’s thoughts must have been twisting along those same lines for his smile turned very predatory as he brought up a valid point.  
“You like living in Midgar, Cloud? You could probably make the slip before any of these bozo’s realized you’d gone. But then you’d be a wanted man and there’d be no going back to shack up with Lockheart without putting her in a crapload of trouble. No playing with the little street rats you like so much without endangering all their innocent little lives. I’d think you’d have had enough of being a wanted man, eh? So come on, be a good boy and cooperate, yeah?”  
Reno had walked right up to him, fearless, that ridiculously unsupported confidence of his gleaming in almond-shaped, green eyes. And he was right. Cloud wasn’t the same person he’d been a few years ago, solitary and angry and confused. Not that some of those things didn’t rear their ugly heads once in a while, some considerably more frequently than others, but he wasn’t prepared to throw away the place he’d made for himself quite so easily as he might once have.  
“The sheath’s over there.” Cloud said softly, jerking his chin towards the discarded leather cradle that lay against the far curb.  
Reno’s smile turned a little smugger, he waved a hand and one of the blues scurried over to retrieve it. The blue came trotting back with it, like a dog to its master and stood behind Reno expectantly. Reno held out a hand and Cloud tipped the big blade forward, letting it fall towards the Turk. Reno caught it, wincing only slightly at the weight of the thing, before passing it back to the blue, who promptly let out a wuff of air at the unexpected acquisition of sixty-five pounds of solid reinforced steel.  
“Happy?” Cloud asked.  
“Know what’ll make me happier?” Reno lifted a pair of cuffs from the belt of the blue officer and dangled them from a forefinger. Cloud looked from the restraints to Reno’s smiling eyes with mute animosity.  
“Oh, come on, it’ll be like one of my little dirty fantasies come to life.”  
The blues had closed in, a circle of weaponry pointed Cloud’s way. He’d relinquished his weapon, his body was one big, throbbing ache, the buzz he’d sported when leaving the bar had turned into premature headache and quite frankly, with the body of a woman who’d smiled at him every time she’d seen him for the past two years, even though he’d hardly ever spoken a word to her, lying bloody and violated only a few steps away, he’d lost the desire to argue.  
He gave Reno a narrow look that promised retribution if the Turk pushed things too far and let Reno draw his wrists behind him and snap the restraints into place.  
The ride to the sector 7 security headquarters was in a way, a relief. It got him off his feet and into the relative comfort of the security car, even if he was sandwiched between Reno, who was still radiating satisfaction and a thick-necked blue. Cloud simply laid his head back and enjoyed the ride.  
The sector 7 security headquarters had never been as high tech as the richer sector’s law accommodations, and after all the trauma Midgar had been through in the last two years, the lack of Mako energy, the lack of proper staffing and most importantly the lack of ShinRa funding, it had fallen into a great deal of disrepair. It was dingy and cramped and the spit and polish blues that crowded into the squad room seemed uncomfortably out of place.  
Since the blue’s seemed intent on taking over and the local law was more than willing to let them shoulder the burden, the mention of wasterlanders making them a little antsy, they turned over the one interrogation room that hadn’t been turned into a stock, barracks or junk room, over to the blue in charge.  
A blue patrolman unfastened the cuff from Cloud’s left wrist and refastened it, right wrist attached to a ring on the top of a metal table bolted to the center of the interrogation room floor. The steel eyed blue officer sat down opposite him, while Reno wondered in before they shut the door and casually leaned against the wall in the far corner. The Turks had no more interest in a few bodies found in the slums than they did in the Wall Market roach population, so unless there were some other agenda at hand, Reno was in this for simple amusement.  
“There are four dead bodies on Calamity Avenue, none of them were armed.”  
Cloud looked up at that. “Only three of them were mine. They were armed. They killed the woman. Annie is her name. They attacked me. I defended myself. The other wastelanders must have taken their gear when they left. End of story.”  
The officer made a doubtful sound, and tapped in notes on the ShinRa think-pad he held in his palm.  
“Listen, don’t I get a call?”  
The officer glanced back to Reno, who shrugged, reached into his inside jacket pocket and withdrew a slim cell phone, which he tossed over the Blue’s head to Cloud.  
Cloud caught it with his free left hand, glared meaningfully at Reno and the blue, who seemed not to get the hint for privacy, so he ground his teeth and dialed 7th Heaven’s number.

The Blue got tired of asking questions that Cloud, having answered the first time around, refused to respond to second third and fourth times. Around the time Tifa arrived, they had put him in a holding cell just off the main squad room, where he sat slumped against the wall on the bunk, ignoring the lot of security personal. Especially ignoring Reno, who kept loitering outside the bars of the cell, trying to get a rise out of him.  
He occupied himself, gently ghosting his fingers over the tender area along his left side, examining the breadth of his injury. Definitely cracked ribs, but nothing shifted under his touch, so he doubted the breaks were through and through. The cut on his leg was deep and ragged, but thanks to his genetically enhanced immune system, had already clotted over.  
He’d been unprepared for the wastelander’s attack, but soldier reflexes were soldier reflexes, no matter how many years it had been since he’d been wearing the same ShinRa blue as the lawmen in the station. He should have wiped the street with the rag tag lot of them. Would have if it hadn’t been for their silver eyed, tattooed leader. He simply had not expected that much speed and that much power from a bandit in from the drylands. He’d been taken off his guard and he’d paid for it. The tat still bothered him, like a common place word that eluded his vocabulary, hovering just beyond his grasp.  
Tifa marched in ready for battle. He’d told her barest bones of the situation over the phone. He wouldn’t have called her at all, save for the fact that being a sector 7 business owner, she contributed to the local law’s paycheck and had some small bit of clout because of it, and being the owner of the same selfsame bar the wastelanders had started the trouble in, her word would be considerably better than his. She saw him in the holding cell, narrowed her eyes and zeroed in on the ranking security in the squad room.  
Reno perked up a little when she came in, straightening his open lapel a little. There wasn’t much he could do with the white shirt underneath. It looked as if it had been slept in.  
“Looks like your girlfriend is ready for a fight.”  
“She’s not my girlfriend.”  
Reno grinned at him and oozed over to the group that had gathered around Tifa. She was doing a lot of hand waving as she talked, occasionally gesturing towards him. She eventually stomped off behind the blue officer in charge and sat down at a desk and began what looked like filing a report.  
It took what seemed forever. Even though Cloud couldn’t hear what was being said, he could tell from Tifa’s expressions that she was frustrated as any sane person would be when butting their heads up against ShinRa bureaucracy and redtape.  
When she finally finished, and the blues gathered to confer among themselves, she walked over to press her face against the bars of Cloud’s cell.  
“I can’t believe Annie’s dead. She was a good woman, no matter her profession and god . . . her poor kids.”  
Cloud said nothing, thinking that a few more orphans in Midgar would hardly be noticed, among the vast number of motherless children. All because of ShinRa’s greed and Sephiroth’s madness.  
“And they’re being obstinate. There’s no reason for them to keep harassing you, when its perfectly clear what happened. They even have a statement from Annie’s friend. They have my statement. If I have to drag Barret and every local who was in the bar last night in to back it up, I will.”  
“That’s all fine and good,” Reno padded up behind her, leaning a shoulder on the bars and smirking down. “But there’s procedure to follow, evidence to process, leads to hunt down.”  
“Bullshit to make up. People to frame. I know.” She returned his smirk with a humorless one of her own.  
“You know, Lockheart, I always liked your spunk.”  
“My spunk’s a bit above my cleavage.” She said deadpan, and Reno lifted his gaze back up to her face, then glanced to the door when it opened, letting in a cool breeze and a large, bald man.  
You could see the gears behind Reno’s eyes shifting, his attention to Tifa evaporating as his Turk partner, Rude, shouldered his way into the station. For a big man, he slid through the press of local law and blue’s crowded into the small squad room with ease. Unlike Reno, his black suit was perfectly pressed, the shirt under it crisp, white and starched.  
Reno sauntered over, they put their heads together and conferred, then Reno cast a frowning glance back towards the holding cell, obvious disappointment on his face. Reno looked as if he wanted to balk at whatever it was that Rude was telling him, but finally caved when the big man gave him a long, silent, over the shades look.  
Reno sighed and beckoned the blue officer. More quiet conference before the officer barked an order and one of the local law ambled over and unlocked the door to Cloud’s cell. The sword, Reno informed him, grasping for the last bit of satisfaction available to him, would have to be withheld for evidence. Despite the rising irritation level, it wasn’t his favorite weapon, so Cloud let the loss slide.  
“The next time you start acting up,” Reno said with acid sweetness. “Disturbing the peace, leaving bodies lying around, I’ll personally come and collect all your sharp toys.”  
Cloud gave him a steady, dead-serious look, ignoring the pull of Tifa’s hands on his arm. “You can come and try, anytime.”  
Rude was near the door, emanating the vague impression that loitering here was a waste of his time. It was hard to tell with Rude, who unlike his partner, seemed to own only one set of facial expressions. Cloud started to pass him, then hesitated. Rude, who used few words and chose the one’s he did with efficiency, didn’t irritate him as much as Reno. It didn’t grate making an inquiry of him.  
“One of the wastelanders had a tattoo. A snake eating its own tail, wrapped around a three-pronged blade. I think its Soldier. Do you know it?”  
Behind opaque, black glasses, Rude’s brows beetled. The corner’s of his mouth turned down a fraction. After too long a hesitation he shook his head mutely, a negative motion.  
“Its been a damned bad night. Don’t fuck with me,” Cloud said wearily.  
Rude took a breath, shifting his head to stare at some point over Cloud’s head. Cloud could see the muscles in his thick neck twitching as if he were experiencing some dilemma. But a mute one. Finally when Cloud had waited as long as his fractured patience would allow and had a hand on the door, ready to stalk out, Rude said softly.  
“Shadow Ops.”  
Cloud froze, fingers tightening on the door handle, a shiver of coiling unease trembling in his gut. No wonder Rude hadn’t wanted to admit to association. No one in their right mind wanted to admit that Shadow Ops had ever existed. All Cloud had ever heard were rumors of that elusive, elite strike team, but the rumors had been brutal, and never backed up by any concrete facts, at least none that filtered down to the bulk of Solider forces.  
Rude turned his back to him, refusing to acknowledge the words had ever left his mouth. Tifa’s fingers bit into Cloud’s arm, urging him out the door before more trouble could descend upon them.  
“What was that about?” she asked.  
“Nothing.” He said and haunched silently in the passenger seat of her beat-up old truck the short drive home. She got a few words of explanation out of him about the incident, but he was distracted and gave abbreviated answers and she gave up trying by the time they reached the bar.  
“Let me off at the garage.” He said and when she looked at him questioningly, added. “I need to finish up something on the bike.”  
She bought that, knowing his Fenrir fetish. He hadn’t told her about the ribs, having had enough of being fussed over with the venom bug poison.  
“I’ll see you tomorrow.” He said in blatant attempt to get her to leave him in peace tonight and return to her bed.  
“Okay. We’ll talk then. Don’t stay out here too late, you look really wasted, Cloud.”  
He nodded, agreeing to anything as long as it got her down the street and into the dubious haven of 7th Heaven. Away from him and the troubles that might be sniffing at his heals. He didn’t want to sleep under the same roof as Tifa and Marlene and Denzel when the pack might be looking for retaliation. When a man with mako mad eyes and a Shadow Ops tattoo led the hunt. They’d killed a innocent woman, lured him out to the Pit and ambushed him all because of a little bit of embarrassment in the bar, what they might do because of three dead friends made him cold inside.  
If the bike had been in one piece he might have taken off then and there, drawing trouble with him. But the carb was still laid out in neat order on the tarp next to Fenrir and he honestly didn’t feel he had the capacity to finish putting it back together tonight.  
Months past, he might have retreated to the Cathedral, taking solitude in its graceful ruins, in its utter silence, in the melancholy calm of the memories it held for him. But with the healing waters that had sprung up there, it was no longer a private haven. No longer a place he could escape to within the city. So the garage down the street from 7th Heaven had to do.  
He washed the blood off his hands. Then went straight for his best blade and its slimmer counterpart, snapping them together with a sharp click and sitting down on the car seat against the wall with the sword propped up against the wall beside him.  
He cleaned the wound on his leg, wrapped a fresh bandage around his thigh and lay down with one knee propped up and the other leg hanging off the side of the seat. He wouldn’t sleep, he was too wound up for that, but his body ached and his head was throbbing, and a little repose would ease those hurts.  
He couldn’t stop thinking about the pack leader. Those pale eyes that reminded him of Sephiroth. Sephiroth and those other few elite Soldiers, the one’s Sephiroth’s age that had gone through the same genetic manipulation that Cloud had, only much earlier, before Hojo and Gast before him had perfected the process. Or at least coming as close to perfection as a flawed project could come.  
He only realized that sleep had come upon him unawares when the sharp rapping at the garage door jerked him back to consciousness. There was gray daylight seeping through the cracks around the door, a clear enough testament that he’d passed the night with his guard dreadfully down.  
He sat up without thinking, and had to haunch over, breath frozen in his chest as broken ribs clamourously reminded him of their existence. More carefully, he rose, figuring it was Tifa come to check on him, or one of the kids that she’d sent round to remind him he’d promised to check in this morning. He slid the door open and blinked up at a broad-chested figure that was very much not Tifa.  
Rude stood there impassively, waiting for Cloud to decide how to handle his presence. Rude was alone, with nothing in his hands save a folder, and Cloud honestly was too sore this morning to wish for anything more than a hot shower and painkiller or two. Confrontation that wasn’t absolutely necessary was out of the question.  
“What do you want?”  
Rude held up the folder. It was blank and black on the outside. Cloud stared at it warily, not moving to take it.  
“You want to take a look,” Rude finally sighed.  
Cloud narrowed his eyes and took the folder. “What is it?” he asked, without opening it.  
“There were seven Shadow Ops members. Five of them are confirmed dead. The other two assumed that way. Look at the files.”  
Cloud swallowed, the worries he’d been entertaining before sleep had chased them away, crowding back into his mind. He went back to the van seat and sank down, fingers teasing the edge of the folder. He looked back up to Rude before opening it. “Why bring this to me?”  
Rude took a moment to answer. “They were the worst of the worst. Sephiroth went mad a long time after they had him. The Shadow ops team . . . they were monsters before Hojo ever got his hands on them. And the company knew it and used them anyway. When Rufus took over, he decommissioned them - - the permanent way. Save for the ones that slipped away. If one of them is alive. Here. I’d like to know.”  
It was more words than Cloud could ever recall hearing Rude speak in one sitting. It had to have hurt. He opened the folder and stared down at a hardened, unfamiliar face. He didn’t bother looking at any of the information. It meant nothing if the face didn’t match the one in his memory. He flipped the page and there he was. A younger version maybe, marginally more clean cut, but the same intense, pale eyes, the same quiet, predatory expression. Code name: Diablo. A serial number. No mention of a surname. No mention of a birth place or any other personal data. No list of missions, no rank. The company wouldn’t have wanted too many ties to the things this man had probably done and Rude wouldn’t have brought him the incriminating stuff. But there was a date. A mention of treatment that had started some twenty years ago.  
He had never met this man, yet in many ways they were the same, creations of the company, taken, altered, remade into the men they were. And this man had been taken early on, when they’d still had enough of the Jenova element to be generous in their genetic manipulations, back when they had first realized what they’d achieved in Sephiroth and had only just started their attempts to recreate him. Those early years of disastrous failures that had resulted in nightmarish abominations had to have produced at least a few viable candidates.  
“Why were they terminated? Why’d Rufus decide to do it all of a sudden, when he hadn’t batted an eye at any of the other bloodthirsty shit the company had pulled before?” Cloud asked.  
Rude looked down at the file Cloud had been staring at for far too long, frown deepening. “Why do you think?”  
“Sephiroth.”  
Rude nodded. “They could have gone mad, like him, or ended up his puppets. You’d know firsthand about that.”  
A muscle jumped in Cloud’s jaw. He closed the folder and handed it back to Rude.  
Cloud knew all too well how powerful the pull of Sephiroth could be, how with even the slightest thread of connection, which the shared Jenova element provided, he could get into your head and shape your will to his own before you even realized he was doing it. How fighting that magnetic pull, that overwhelming personality was so damned hard . . .  
Even from beyond the grave, Sephiroth had influence as the whole Kadaj incident thoroughly proved. He was a soul that refused to be absorbed into the collective of the life stream. A soul that sought a portal back into the world of the living. He’d found that with Kadaj. And Cloud had sent him back to the lifestream yet one more time.  
“Thanks.” He said and Rude grunted, turned and left, simple as that. Cloud sat for a long time afterwards, idly running the tips of his fingers across the tender flesh over his cracked ribs, wondering what the chances were of him running into one of the few surviving ex-soldiers in the world, twice in one day. Damned low. Astronomically low.  
Which led to the question what interest an ex-shadow ops wetworker would have in him? Cloud’s spotty memory notwithstanding, he had been low enough in the Solider hierarchy that the chances of him ever having contact with an elite covert operative were next to non-existent.  
The only reason he’d ever met Sephiroth himself, was that Sephiroth being Soldier’s poster boy of the day, was occasionally given legitimate/propaganda friendly missions.  
He idly wondered if Zack had known this man. This Diablo. Zack had done a lot of things that he never spoke of. Classified things that he couldn’t talk about and not risk company censure. Things he wouldn’t speak of because he didn’t think Cloud needed to hear them, no matter the other intimate things they spoke of late at night in the privacy of Zack’s room.  
Cloud rose, faster than he ought to have, but the pain was a welcome method of chasing away nostalgia. He didn’t want to think about Zack, because Zack memories hurt.  
What he needed was a painkiller, maybe taken with a shot of whiskey. He needed his bike back in one piece and he needed Tifa and Barret on their guard against the reappearance of any of the wastelanders from last night.  
Barret was outside with Marlene and Denzel when Cloud emerged from the garage. The kids seemed considerably more enthusiastic about being up and active this morning than Barret looked or Cloud felt. The big man disengaged Marlene’s small hand from his fingers and ambled towards Cloud.  
“You promised.” Marlene whined, trailing behind. Denzel, who was not as brazen, or Cloud suspected, as spoiled, stood waiting hesitantly, a shy, uncertain smile of greeting on his round face. Cloud nodded his way, too distracted for more niceties.  
“I know,” Barret said, shooing the girl back. “The both of you get candy, but give me a minute for some grown-up talk.”  
Marlene pouted, but retreated back to Denzel, where she promptly forgot her irritation.  
“Tifa said what happened last night. Those bastards got the nerve. Poor ol’ Annie.” Barret opened.  
“If you see them again . . . take no chances, okay.”  
Barret frowned. “Think they’ll be back?”  
“I don’t know. Just . . . the leader’s ex-soldier, okay? Don’t get caught alone, that’s all.”  
“Ex-solider? No shit? Small fuckin’ world, ain’t it? He the one that bang you up?”  
Cloud frowned, wondering what bruises he was sporting today that hadn’t been evident last night. He nodded shortly and left Barret to the children. When he went into the bar to give Tifa the same heads up he’d given Barret, she furrowed her brows and promised to keep an eye out, but hypothesized hopefully that he was being pessimistic and that the whole thing was unfortunate coincidence.  
And as the weeks passed with no further incident he even began to believe it.


	2. Chapter 2

The customer was one of the new elite. One of the up and coming entrepreneurs that had come into their own when ShinRa lost its monopoly on . . . well, almost everything. Whether he was in fossil fuels or industry, Cloud didn’t know. Didn’t really care, as long as the gil was good.   
It was. The half that was offered up front was better than the total payoff of the last three jobs combined. Even for a rush job, that would end up taking him across two continents and the Inner Sea, it was more than Cloud would have charged himself if he’d gotten around to quoting a fee to the man, before the man made an offer of his own. A stroke of good luck that he hadn’t opened his mouth sooner and cheated himself out of a goodly amount of gil.   
Besides, getting away from Midgar would be a good thing. Even though there had been no ramifications from the wastelanders and their ex-shadow ops leader, Cloud couldn’t shake the feeling of unease. It was like waiting for the hammer to fall and he hated it. Hated the constant little niggling worry that lurked in the back of his mind, making him jumpy and tense over nothing. Despised the all too frequent nightmares.   
New nightmares. He would have welcomed a return of the old ones; Sephiroth and the claustrophobic shadow of a ShinRa lab being familiar torments that he had learned to deal with over the years. The new ones woke him up in the middle of the night sometimes, cold sweat on his body, heart trying to pound its way out of his chest. The new ones involved people he loved, bloody and mutilated and left for him to find. Himself bumbling blindly in the dark to strike back, fumbling moves that should have come second nature to him, crumbling under the malicious silver blue stare of the wolf who hunted him. Sometimes the wolf, the psychopath with the snake tattoo, did turn familiar, silver eyes melting into green ones that just screamed, ‘Did you doubt me?’, before he could claw his way out of the dream.   
But nothing ever came of it in the real world. And after a month, Tifa gave up doubling her muscle on weekend nights, and stopped starting every time the bar door opened to admit a new patron. She urged him to put it behind him, though how she guessed he still fretted over it was beyond him, for he certainly didn’t share the content of his nightmares with her.   
Yes, getting out of Midgar would help.   
If it hadn’t been a rush job, with a promised bonus if he got back to Midgar with signed documents from his client’s soon to be business partner in record time, he would have gone west to Junon and caught a lift across the sea on a cargo ship and then gone cross country to the meet. As it was, he took a chance that a faster mode of ocean transit was on this side of the water and made a call . . .

The pack of smokes was almost empty and there was at least an hours worth of work before the shipment was off-loaded and a man desperate for nicotine could take a break and go hunt down a new pack in the budding village of New Mideel.   
Cid Highwind rotated aching shoulders and eyed the patch of daylight at the opening of the Sierra’s cargo bay. The village was a half hour’s walk through the forest that loomed over the edge of the clearing that he habitually used for a landing field. The new town had sprung up within eyesight of the ruins of the old one, which was not much more than a water filled crater in the middle of the forest, bristling with the skeletons of what used to be a quaint little village. Granted the water in question glowed with the essence of the planet’s lifestream, but uninhabitable, was still uninhabitable. He’d been flying in heavy supplies off and on for the last few years. Building materials that the industrious folk of Mideel couldn’t produce on their own from the raw fodder their lush forests provided. Farming equipment for the new crops that had sprung up on the northern tip of the island, things that came in easier by air than by sea, since the chain of islands Mideel occupied was surrounded by shallow reefs and allowed deep bodied cargo ships no safe route in to dock.   
They paid him half of what he usually charged, partly because the people of the island weren’t rolling in gil, and partly because he felt some shared commiseration with the misplaced townsfolk, having been in old Mideel himself when the town was flattened.   
Cid hefted a crate onto the pallet the Sierra’s forklift waited to take down the cargo ramp to the waiting array of chocobo drawn wagons, and rusty pick-up trucks of the locals. He straightened, stretching a sore back and wiped sweat from his forehead. There was another stack of crates to be off loaded and he was already wishing for a break somewhere in the shade with a smoke and a beer and the prospect of a nice long nap. He needed to hire a few extra hands. Young muscle with strong backs more suited to this sort of heavy lifting. But Cid was nothing if not thrifty and strong backs that were trustworthy demanded big paychecks and he was already footing a crew of five, including bridge hands and mechanics. He’d damn well help with the cargo work if it saved him gil.   
There was another strong back aboard at the moment, that Cid hadn’t seen hide nor hair of since they’d sat down, but Vincent didn’t do manual labor and Vincent especially didn’t do manual labor in the middle of a hot island day with a crowd of interested natives mulling about in curiosity. Vincent disliked crowds more than he disliked bright, sunny days bereft of secretive shadows. Shadows and secrets were Vincent’s forte.   
The fact that he was here, on Sierra, in Cid’s company was curious. Not that he didn’t seek out Cid on more occasions than he sought out other members of the human race, it was just that after they’d met up in Midgar after Yuffie’s disastrous little foray into the venom bug cave, he’d stayed with Cid a few days before predictably needing his solitude and disappearing. And then, unpredictably, he’d showed up again in Junon when Sierra had been picking up supplies, not a week and a half later. Usually it was a lot longer than that, before Cid got a call. Or more likely, Vincent just appeared, silent and needing that bit of human contact that he felt most comfortable getting from Cid.   
And then he’d left again, restless as a cat on the prowl and like a roaming tom, reappeared a week later, more troubled than usual and intractable as hell.   
You couldn’t really accuse Vincent of being moody since . . . well, since he was mostly melancholy all the time. Mood swings for him would have meant going into cheerful, chatty mode and the likelihood of that happening was about as high as Cid striking oil. He took comfort in Cid’s bunk and Cid was glad to give it, but he wasn’t much for confiding his troubles, other than to say that something more than the usual comfortable and familiar sins were disturbing his nightmares. Cid didn’t press it. That would have only driven Vincent away and besides, Cid had been around long enough, had lived through enough of his own crisis’s to understand that a man needed privacy in some things. That sometimes just silent companionship was more comfort than bearing the secrets of a wounded heart.   
Cid grabbed a ride into New Mideel on the back one of the cargo laden pick-ups, found a shop keeper with a few packs of overpriced smokes to be had and grumbling over the cost, took both of them, vowing to stock up as soon as he got back to civilization. Two or three of his crew were also in the village, but he’d given them the afternoon off after the off-load, so didn’t bother to bark at them to get back to work. He bought an island brewed beer that had a bit too much fruity flavor to suit his taste and walked the dirt road through the forest back to the clearing where he’d landed Sierra.   
He could see her big ass over the tree-line before he reached the edge of the woods and a beautiful ass it was. She used to be a ShinRa airship, pirated and remodeled and revamped and rechristened. She was sleeker, faster, with more cargo space in her belly than the ship she’d been reincarnated from. He’d risked a half dozen abandoned - - or mostly abandoned ShinRa military outposts scavenging parts for her. Those two big aft engines had been hell to transport home, but a determined man with a plan was hard to thwart.   
With ShinRa down to bare bones and the rest of the world more interested in rebuilding and scrambling to find alternative fuel sources, there wasn’t a lot of competition for air-cargo. For air-travel period. Hell, even before Sephiroth flipped his lid and loosed havoc on the world, there hadn’t been a lot of folks in the aeronautical field.   
Which put him at the top of a very, very small minority.   
He’d gone through two cigarettes on the walk back and was contemplating lighting up a third as he hiked up the Sierra cargo ramp and into the long belly of the ship. His crew chief, an ex-ShinRa tech that had happily taken up work in the civilian field, waved him down.  
“Call for you on the bridge, Capn’.”  
Cid grunted and tapped the smoke back into the pack, and the pack back into the band of the airman’s goggles that pushed back his short, blonde hair. His fresh-faced, barely out of diapers, back-up pilot/bridge tech, waved a scrap of paper at him nervously.   
“Message for you, Captain,” the kid said in a voice that couldn’t decided whether to pitch high or low. Damned adolescent.   
Cid took the paper, looked at the name and the number and lifted both shaggy, blonde brows in curiosity. There was a cell phone in a niche of the arm of the nice, worn pilot’s chair. He settled down into cool leather with a sigh, and dialed the number. 

Most of Sierra’s crew quarters were small and cramped, sporting two tier bunks and little else. There was a community crapper and showers were made due in the cargo bay with the maintenance hose. But, being engineer and owner and captain, Cid had splurged and put a little more of the comforts of home into the captain’s cabin. The bunk was big enough for two bodies, if they slept close, and there was watercloset no bigger than it took for a man to stand upright and do his business in one corner, and a set of built in cabinets in the other and between the two a short padded leather bench. An inset desk with navigational charts and ship’s books sat at the end of the bunk, along with a swivel chair bolted to the floor.   
There was a porthole over the bench, but the curtain was drawn when Cid opened the door and the small cabin awash in shadow. It took his eyes a moment to find Vincent, barefoot on the floor with one knee drawn up, head tilted back against the metal of the wall, eyes closed.   
“Got a bunk and a bench and chair and you sit on the damned floor.” Cid shook his head, not surprised. Gods knew why Vincent did some of the things Vincent did, but then again, hell was probably a better place to look for those answers.   
Cid turned on the desk lamp, not as content in the dark as Vincent and flopped down onto the bench seat. He pulled off his goggles and tossed them onto the desk, then ran a hand through sweat stiffened hair.   
“You been out to the town since we landed?” he didn’t think Vincent had left the airship, but he thought he’d ask, anyway, just to prompt an answer.   
Black lashes cracked and Cid got a sliver of amber eyes. “No.”  
“Done a lot since last time I was here. Got a fair amount of new settlers, come to live out here in the boonies. Can’t say I blame ‘em, considering what shitholes some of the cities are nowadays.” He pulled off his dirty shirt and tossed it on the floor by the door. His bare back against the cool leather of the bench back felt good. He closed his eyes, sighing, pushing the need for a smoke away, because though Vincent would tolerate it, he wasn’t keen on being cooped up in a small room filled with Cid’s tobacco exhalations.   
“Just talked with Cloud,” he said, eyes still shut, arms stretched out along the bench back, pausing long enough to wonder if that got Vincent’s attention enough to make him open those sinful/erotic eyes. He cracked his own open enough to look down at Vincent, who had canted his head a little to the side, waiting patiently for Cid to continue.  
Vincent worried over Cloud, more than he worried over Cid. Maybe that was because Cid had never in his life been fucked-up enough to warrant anybody’s worry, and Cloud turned being fucked-up into a major art form when he was at his lowest, but still a man couldn’t help being a little jealous. Not that he held it against Cloud, Vincent’s interest. Cloud didn’t ask for it. Cloud didn’t ask anybody for anything if he could help it, but without ever really trying - - hell, most of the time actively attempting to avoid it - - he gathered people’s attention like moths to a flame.   
A man simply got a bit insecure over his lover of the past few years interest in a too-pretty, twenty-something kid. He knew Vincent had slept with him, had even given it his blessing a few weeks past when Cloud had been out of his head and needed something more than a slap in the face to shake him out of it. And it wasn’t like he’d have turned the kid away from his bunk if he’d have come asking. Not that he ever had. After all, Cloud’s taste in bedmates or his luck in them was selective to say the least. Vincent for sure. The Soldier Elite, Zack, and if rumors were true, and God knew a man only had rumors to go on with a closed-mouth bastard like Cloud, Sephiroth himself, back before he went completely off the deep end.   
It was enough to make a middle-aged man that had never been anything close to pretty, occasionally lose a little sleep.   
“And . . .?” Vincent finally prompted.   
Cid closed his eyes again and grinned. “Kid wants a lift across the pond, is all.”  
Vincent made a soft sniffing sound, as if he’d been expecting something more dire. That was the only sound Cid heard before he felt the tips of Vincent’s fingers on his shoulder and felt the brush of Vincent’s pants against his knees. He reached up blindly, smile widening as he wrapped his fingers in the cloth of Vincent’s untucked shirt, pulling him closer in until he felt the weight of his body straddling his thighs.   
Eyes still shut, by feel alone, he worked at the buttons of Vincent’s shirt, pushing it off his shoulders as the last bottom popped free of its hole. He felt the fluid movement as Vincent shrugged it off, material sliding over flesh and blood arm on the one side and the warm metal of the unnatural one grafted onto his shoulder on the other.   
Cid ran work roughened palms across soft skin that he knew without having to look was the color of moon-kissed snow. He moved his hands up, fingers tangling in long, silken hair and tugged.   
Vincent leaned down, resting elbows on the bench back and kissed him. A long leisurely kiss that sent shivers down Cid’s spine and sent blood pounding into his suddenly very eager cock. He slipped his hands down the waistband of Vincent’s trousers, spreading his fingers out across the firm curves of his ass, kneading and squeezing until Vincent shifted on his lap, pressing against the already constrained flesh in his pants.   
That was all he could take, and as more often than not, foreplay was short and sweet between them, he pushed Vincent back far enough so that he could get to the fastening of his pants and free his almost painfully engorged cock.   
Vincent looked down at it, rosy tipped and bobbing above the dark, golden hair that grew thick at Cid’s groin. He lifted a black brow, fine mouth quirking, as close to a smile as Vincent ever came. One long finger toyed with Cid’s dangling dog tags.   
“Don’t just sit there.” Cid complained, one hand gently gripping his cock, the other pulling at Vincent’s belt buckle. Amusement glinted in amber eyes. And hunger. Vincent brushed Cid’s hand away and unfastened his trousers himself, standing up long enough to push them down and step out of them, revealing long, white limbs, mostly hairless save for the growth between his legs. His cock was full and hard, not as thick as Cid, but long and graceful like the rest of him. God, but all of him was just gorgeous, even the dully gleaming metal arm and like every other time they fucked, Cid could hardly believe his good fortune.   
“Lube. Get the lube.” Cid couldn’t quite reach the cabinet next to the bench. Vincent leaned that way, fetching the required tube out of the place they both knew it was kept, squirting a little on his fingertips and reaching down to coat Cid’s cock. Cid banged his head back against the wall at the cool touch.   
He grasped Vincent’s slim hips, drawing him back towards his lap, and Vincent came with sure confidence, leaning with his belly against Cid’s chest as he found the right position, fingers wrapping around Cid’s erection as he guided himself down. And just like that he impaled himself, slow and without hesitation, body sliding down the length of Cid’s cock until his firm buttocks rested on Cid’s hips. Vincent leaned forward, eyes closed, hair falling about his face, pooling on Cid’s chest, then he sighed and began to move. Cid’s hands roamed his body, teasing Vincent’s bobbing cock, squeezing his fine ass. A light sheen of perspiration broke out upon his body, and he fought the urge to simply surge up and slam Vincent onto the bunk behind them, to pound into him like an animal in mating frenzy. But, if Vincent wanted to control the flow of this session, then Cid would endure the lazy pace. Fair was fair since Cid usually played the dominant role.   
But he knew how to bring a little more fervor into Vincent’s pale face and proceeded to do so, wrapping his fingers around Vincent’s long cock and beginning to pump. Vincent’s mouth trembled and a little helpless sound escaped. He began to increase his pace to match Cid’s hand on his cock, the both of them gasping and thrusting in time.   
Cid came with a deep growl, hips straining off the black leather of the bench, fingers tightening into a death grip about Vincent’s cock. His balls tightened into what felt like hard little marbles, pulsing at the base of his cock as he spilled his seed.   
Vincent came mid-way through Cid’s culmination, probably helped along by the no doubt painful grip on his cock. Vincent didn’t mind a little pain with his pleasure. Hell, he got off on it and Cid had figured out long ago that any man that made a religion out of the guilts he carried, was more than open to a bit of flagellation, self inflicted or otherwise.   
With a gust of discharged tension Vincent slumped forward, forehead on the bench, hair tickling Cid’s cheek. Cid leaned his own head back, wanting that cigarette worse than before now and making due with lazily running his hands up Vincent’s long back. He was like a drug in a way, making a man ache for him terribly on those long nights when he wasn’t around. Which was more often than not, for the most part, but of late . . . well, life had been good.   
With a sigh, Vincent swung off him, bending to retrieve his trousers and pulling them on before collapsing gracefully onto the bench at Cid’s side. Vincent had a thing about his body and baring it for too long. He had scars on that pale skin, remnants of things done to him a long time ago that hadn’t been pretty and hadn’t been anything but malicious on the part of the bastard that had used him as his personal guinea pig. Most of them were faded to near invisibility, but Vincent never forgot they were there . . . or the things they represented.   
Cid on the other hand, had a very low sense of personal shame. He didn’t much care if his happily sated cock peeked out from open trousers, by far more interested in enjoying the euphoric feeling a body generally experienced after really good sex. He sighed, smiling with his eyes closed and lifted a lethargic hand to scratch an itch between lean, hairy pecks.   
“Promised the crew the afternoon off. Might as well give them liberty for the night and set out tomorrow.”  
“Umm.” Vincent commented, not asking what Cid figured he wanted to ask.   
“Kid said he’d meet us in Junon. It’ll take him till afternoon tomorrow to get there from where he was when we talked. I’d just as well slack off here in tropical paradise as there. Well, long as the smokes last.”  
“They’ll last.” Vincent predicted.   
Cid snorted, figuring they might if he took advantage of the down time and slept away the urge for nicotine. He pushed himself forward with a grunt, leaning down to unlace and pull off his boots, then shucked his pants off and transferred his weary body to the bunk, stretching out upon it stark naked and wishing that the porthole would open and let in a little island breeze. Without the big engines working, the ship’s air circulation system was inoperable, which meant stuffy cabins.   
“I’m taking a nap. Worked damned hard today.”   
“I see.”   
Cid cracked an eye. “You can turn off the lamp and go back to meditating or whatever the hell you were doing, if you want. Won’t bother me.”  
“Umm.” Vincent rose and switched off the lamp, plunging the cabin back into shadow. But he didn’t return to his spot on the floor, instead settling onto the bunk next to Cid, shirtless and barefoot and stretched out formal like on his back, which was the way he usually slept, like he was still in the coffin like box they’d found him in all that time ago, a forgotten experiment left in eternal stasis. Cid would pull him closer later, force a little more human laxness to his limbs when sleep was closer upon him and Vincent’s compulsions weren’t as close to the surface.   
But for right now, Cid simply shut his eyes, content in the quiet company and napped.

It was twelve hours as the crow flies, from the island settlement on Mideel to the coastal town of Junon. And that was with a good tailwind up their ass.  
The Sierra crew was up at the crack of dawn, drinking and carousing in New Mideel the night before not impacting their captain’s habit of getting an early start. They had picked up a small cargo of sugar and the spices which were Mideel’s chief exports and would bring a good price in northern ports of trade. With the profits from the Mideel cargo, Cid figured he might come out a little bit ahead after this job.   
They came into Junon late in the afternoon, about an hour before dusk, the Sierra settling down on what used to be a ShinRa military strip atop the old ShinRa outpost above the town of Junon. The ShinRa presence there was muted at best now. They’d striped the most of their high-tech equipment years ago and transferred it to a much smaller base north of here. What was left still bore the marks of numerous attacks by the monster Weapon beast that Sephiroth had summoned to wreak havoc on the world a few years back. After appropriating the big-assed canon that used to loom over the landscape atop the base, ShinRa had pretty much abandoned it as too expensive a project to revitalize. The people of Junon and the flood of homeless folks that sprung up after that last cataclysmic clash between a desperate planet and the destruction that Sephiroth had called down, had been more than happy to make use of abandoned ShinRa property. In two and a half years Junon had grown to be the largest port city on the eastern continent. There were half a hundred boats bobbing alongside ramshackle piers all up and down the waterfront. The bigger bellied ships lay at port at the old deep water ShinRa docks, or waited further out at anchor for a space to open up. Most of them had probably been at sea for four days or more, since that was how long it took to make a surface trip from the nearest western continent port of Costa Del Sol.  
Cid felt a bit of smug satisfaction as he surveyed the small shapes of boats from the vantage of the topside airstrip, knowing that Sierra would make the same trip in six hours.   
After paying Junon landing fees he and Vincent took the freight elevator down to ground level and Junon town proper. Like most burgeoning port towns it was bustling with activity. The old townsfolk still fished for a living, their weathered old fishing boats crowded in amongst the cargo vessels, but a whole new crop of businesses, warehouses and homes had sprung up.  
“Listen, I’m off to see about selling this cargo.” Cid stopped to light a cigarette, indicating a row of warehouses down by the port. “Won’t be long. There was some bad weather brewing north of here, so it might have slowed Cloud up some.”  
Vincent eyed the row of newer pubs and eateries that had replaced some of the older, ramshackle buildings that had used to be in this older part of Junon. The lights in front of some of the buildings were starting to come on as dusk deepened. It was almost dark enough for Vincent to feel comfortable roaming about.   
“I’ll meet you at Pegleg’s after, okay? If the kid shows up, he’ll look for me there. Knows they got the best whiskey in town.”  
Vincent shrugged and melted into the shadows in that effortless way he had.   
Cid sold his cargo after a lot of argument and bickering over a fair price. He sent word up to his crew where to deliver the goods to and left the port office whistling happily at the profit his spry bargaining skills had earned him.   
Pegleg’s sat at the wharf end of a long wooden pier. It served decent food and great booze and even though it wasn’t much for interior decorating, or exterior upkeep for that matter, it was still a haven for old salts and local villagers. It smelled like grilled fish was on the menu tonight. He could smell the aroma over the ever present bouquet of ale and whiskey and smoke.   
Sighing in expectation he scanned the muted guts of the pub for a familiar figure and was just a little bit surprised to see that Vincent was actually here. More often than not, Vincent avoided people places. Granted, he had his back the wall in the booth in the farthest corner of the room, and there was just something about him, that tended to make the other mundane folk in the pub keep their distance. A man had to admit, that with the red bandanna that kept most of his long hair out of his face and the high collar of his cloak hiding the bottom portion of his face, it made those amber eyes of his that sometimes glowed red when he was in temper, seem all the more inhuman.   
Cid picked up a quarter bottle of whiskey from the bar keep and took it and a shot glass to the table Vincent had appropriated. Cid didn’t even bother to offer to share, knowing very well that Vincent would decline.   
“So, no Cloud.” Cid stated the obvious. Vincent shook his head.   
Cid downed a shot glass of golden liquid and sighed in appreciation. Pegleg’s best. Almost better than sex.   
Almost.  
“So,” he said pouring another shot. “I’ll be taking the ship back home after this, ‘less you got somewhere else to go?”  
It was a clear invitation. A hopeful one. Rocket Town was his homebase, and the town depended upon the business Cid and Sierra brought it. Hell, he’d employed half the town off and on, during construction of the hanger facility and various maintenance work. They’d traded a down and out ShinRa rocket for a sleek airship and none of them seemed less than happy about it. He had a house there, that he’d lived in for the past decade and it was comfortable and familiar and there was nothing he liked better than Vincent under that roof.   
“All right.” Vincent agreed and Cid had to do a doubletake to make sure he’d heard correct. This would be longer than Vincent had stayed with him in a stretch . . . well, ever.   
He threw back the second shot and leaned closer to Vincent, eyeing him warily. He’d refrained from asking so far, knowing Vincent valued his privacy above all else, but damn it, a man could only take so much odd behavior and not have to know the root cause.   
“Okay, Vin, you’re starting to freak me out a little here. Not that I’m complaining about the company, ‘cause god knows, I’m not . . . but what the hell is going on with you?”  
Black lashes fluttered down over almond shaped eyes and when Vincent lowered his chin deeper into his collar, there wasn’t much of his face to be seen at all save for elegant shadows. He was silent long enough for Cid to think he wasn’t going to answer at all, for him to pour another shot and consume it without really tasting the fine liquor.   
“I don’t know.” When the answer came, Vincent’s voice was lower than usual, tinged with an uncertainty that Cid didn’t often hear in him. “There’s just . . . a feeling. An ill wind is stirring . . . a storm, but I only feel it in my dreams.”  
If that wasn’t cryptic as hell, what was? But it was Vincent through and through, and more of an answer that Cid had expected, even if it did make a few goose bumps pop up on the back of his arms.   
“You think there’s trouble coming?” he asked and Vincent lifted his head enough to look at him, brows drawn. So that was exactly what he thought.   
Cid canted his head, a thought dawning. “You fearful for me? You thinking you need to stick close ‘cause this old man might run into trouble he can’t handle?”  
“You’re not old.” Vincent said softly, not denying the rest.   
A slow, pleased smile spread across Cid’s face. “Yeah, tell that to my aching back, after unloading two tons of cargo yesterday.”  
The corner of Vincent’s mouth quirked, then his gaze fluttered up, attention shifting towards the door. Cid followed his stare and saw Cloud shouldering his way past two dock workers that had paused to engage in debate.   
The kid looked tired. Dusty and road-weary, which was to be expected, traveling from Midgar to the Junon coast. No short trip via land, even with that damned big bike of Cloud’s. He’d probably been on the road three or four days already and some of those roads, the back ones that would have saved him miles over taking the more sedate, established byways, were rough traveling.   
Cloud stopped inside the bar, scanning the room and finding Cid and Vincent at their corner table. He inclined his head slightly, and moved towards them.   
He drew stares. Some because of the big ass sword he had strapped across his back, others because . . . well, because the kid was eye-catching. The way he moved, all constrained power and easy grace, the healthy symmetry of a fine, young body. That face, which contrasted the subtle, dangerous air Cloud radiated, that warned most folk that weren’t denser than rocks that no matter how young and pretty the package was, that this was not a man to be trifled with.  
Cloud pulled a chair out across the table from them, turned it around so he wouldn’t have to loosen the shoulder sheath, and sank down with his elbows across the chair back. There was a spattering of dark water spots on the scuffed leather of the shoulder guard on his left shoulder, a few glimmering little droplets in unruly, wheat blonde hair, which meant they were getting the first taste of rain along the coast from the bad weather brewing northward.   
Cid motioned to the barkeep for another shot glass, knowing well enough that Cloud didn’t have Vincent’s aversion to strong liquor and the kid looked like he could use a shot or two about now.   
“Nice trip?” Cid asked, pouring two fingers worth of whiskey into the second shot glass.   
Cloud made a non-committal sound and downed the amber liquid, shutting his eyes a moment afterward as the stuff burned a path down his throat. When he opened them again, he glanced at Vincent, a brief turmoil of thought flitting across his face before he turned back to Cid, who was safer territory. “There’s a storm following me from the north. Will it delay us?”  
Cid stubbed out the butt of his cigarette, casting a sideways glance at Vincent himself and finding probably what Cloud had found, which was no discernible expression at all. Cloud might not be much of a talker, but the kid didn’t have the face of stone that Vincent did and it wasn’t hard to tell, if you knew him, what was going on behind those sky blue eyes of his. Just then it had been embarrassment. Just a flicker of it, but enough to tell that he was remembering the last time he’d seen Vincent with considerably more self-consciousness than Vincent was experiencing.   
“Not unless its one mother of a storm. Don’t worry, I’ll get you across the pond before sun sets tomorrow.”  
“Where are you headed?” Vincent inquired.   
“Gold Saucer. To meet a man. Deliver some papers.”  
Cid refilled both their glasses. “I can drop you off by Coral on my way home. If you’re gonna be there a few days, you can give me a call and if I’m feeling charitable, I might be up to letting you hitch a ride back Midgar way.”  
Cloud lifted a brow at him, a faint curve gracing his lips. “You’re a prince, Cid.”  
“Yeah, ain’t it the truth. So how’s Tifa? Good?”  
“Same.” Cloud offered up his information in one word increments and when Cid sat there, cocking his head in expectation of more, sighed and added. “Barret’s back. Will be for a couple more weeks. He’s helping with the bar. Marlene’s ecstatic.”  
“That’s good. You ain’t had any more trouble, you know, getting loopy with visions of Sephiroth and all that?”  
Cloud gave him a narrow look, not appreciating the humor Cid found in the question. He didn’t bother with an answer, even though Vincent canted his head a little in interest at the inquiry.   
Cid chuckled and split the last of the whiskey between himself and Cloud, not ashamed in the least to give himself the lion’s portion. He tossed the liquor down with a gusty sigh and slammed the shot glass, lip down, upon the scarred table top.   
“I got refueling to do and maybe a little cargo to buy if I can find a good deal down at the docks, so we’re in Junon for the night. You can bunk down on Sierra if you want. You look like you need the shut eye. Lift off’s ass-crack of dawn tomorrow.”

“So whaddya think?” Cid posed the question to Vincent, late that night, back within the confines of his cabin on Sierra. They both lay on the bunk, naked by necessity this time, drenched to the bone from the heavy rains that had swept down upon Junon, almost as if they’d followed Cloud into town. He had minor cargo loaded, the ship was refueled, the crew was onboard catching up on sleep they’d missed in Mideel. Cloud was dead to the world in one of the passenger cabins and his bike was stowed in the cargo bay. All that was needed was a few hours for dawn to breach the horizon and hopefully for the downpour that assaulted the Sierra’s outer hull to lessen a little and they’d be off for the western continent. The storm didn’t bother him. He could fly over most weather unless it was a typhoon category tempest. Then even Sierra better find a safe haven to wait out the worst of it.   
“Humm?” Vincent responded to his inquiry, metal arm dangling off the side of the bunk, flesh and blood one grazing Cid’s bony hip.   
“‘bout the kid, dumbass.”  
“He’s Cloud.”   
That obvious and purposely obtuse answer made Cid growl and roll over of a sudden, pinning Vincent beneath him. Vincent looked up at him unblinkingly, composed and cool with just a hint of amusement on his pale face.   
“He has things on his mind.”  
“No shit? Cloud? Hard to believe, but don’t we all?”  
Vincent shifted a little, making himself comfortable under Cid’s weight, spreading his thighs a little to make room for Cid’s legs. That put their groins flush together and Cid shut his eyes a moment to adjust to the sensation, the need for conversation beginning to seep away in favor of other things. But not quite. Cloud thoughts were still on his mind and the quiet way Vincent sometimes looked at the kid as if he were contemplating deep things that nobody would ever hear voiced in the light of day.   
“He a good lay?” It was a question he’d never broached before. Hell, he’d never wanted to hear the answer for the sake of his own self-confidence, but then again, he’d never had Vincent for such a long stretch of time before. Long enough to make a man start feeling possessive and a little bit jealous.   
“He’s naive,” Vincent said, without having to think it over much. “It surprises him when people want him.”  
Cid snorted inelegantly, finding that irritating and entirely believable at the same time. Sometimes the kid could be absolutely clueless.  
“Yeah, but that don’t answer my question?”  
“Exquisite.” Vincent ran long fingers through the hair on Cid’s chest, then slid his hand up around his neck to draw him down. “He is exquisite . . .”

The rain chased them across the inland sea. The view from any port was nothing but gray storm clouds pierced by the occasional flare of lightning. It made the airship feel more claustrophobic that Cloud remembered, that lack of proper sky outside the ports. Cloud had a problem with closed spaces. With being locked into a place that there was no easy out of. Maybe it was a throwback to those indeterminable, nightmare days in Hojo’s care, strapped down, constrained, experimented on, dissected . . . destroyed . . . that always slipped up on him unawares when the walls started closing in. Maybe it came from earlier days, an unfounded quirk that just was. Regardless, a cramped cabin aboard an airship, ten thousand feet above a storm tossed sea, qualified.   
He was relieved when they outpaced the storm and real sunlight flooded the thick ports. Happier still when the mountain range they’d been crossing turned to amber desert, which was a sure sign that the Gold Saucer resort and amusement park was not far away . . . well, not far by air. It was another matter altogether making a land crossing, the facility sitting in the midst of the largest known desert on either continent.   
It was a good marketing point, the harshness of the surrounding lands pretty much insuring that any guest that planned to visit for longer than a day, and honestly who made the long trip out here and didn’t stay for an extended visit, had to utilize Gold Saucer accommodations, Gold Saucer restaurants and Gold Saucer shops.   
Even with a world recovering from near catastrophe, people still flocked to Gold Saucer. He’d even heard rumors that it had been remodeled and expanded, after damages caused by the erupting life stream had caused it to temporarily shut down over two years past. Not that he’d ever been tempted to go back of his own volition. The carnival atmosphere of the theme park worked his nerves, as did the general hyper-gaiety that seemed to run rampart in the place.   
After close to an hours flight, a glimmer of distant metal could be seen through the heat haze of the desert. It was that massive a place, that it could be gleaned from miles away, a shining structure that towered like a behemoth over unlivable land. The Sierra veered north before they got much closer, heading towards the coal bearing mountains of the Coral range, where the main entry port to the park was located. There was only one way in or out of the facility and that was via air trolleys that ran twenty-four seven to and from Gold Saucer.  
The Sierra landed on a flat stretch of valley half mile from the air-trolley, and Cloud rolled Fenrir down the cargo ramp, while Cid lit up a smoke and leaned against the big piston powered arm that operated the bay doors.   
“Thanks, Cid. I appreciate it.” Cloud shaded his eyes against the sun that hovered just above Sierra’s bulk.  
“Not a problem.” Cid grinned at him around the cigarette.   
He hadn’t seen much of Vincent during the flight over, but then one never did, unless Vincent wanted to be seen. He drifted out of the shadows of the cargo bay now, ragged edges of his cloak rippling in the mountain born breeze. He’d wondered, caught in the tension of claustrophobia fed nerves, if that absence had to do with what happened last month in Midgar, himself acting the fool over a poison induced nightmare, Vincent calming the hysteria the only way that Cloud had been willing to respond to. And then he’d gone off with Cid, which was to expected. And now they stood, together, sharing an unspoken bond that made Cloud feel embarrassed and guilty and just a tiny bit envious.   
“Anyway . . . thanks.” He swung a leg over the bike, needing to gain a little distance to ease the thrum of abashment that beat in his chest.   
“Cloud,” Vincent said from the top of the ramp. “Call. When you’re done.”  
Cloud looked over his shoulder at him, seeing nothing in the portion of Vincent’s face that was visible, that hinted at regret or condemnation. He wasn’t sure if he planned to take Cid up on his offer of a lift home, but he nodded anyway, simply to appease. Then he started the bike and Fenrir’s engines purred to life, familiar, powerful vibration between his legs. Without looking back he left Sierra behind.   
The air-trolley facility was a massive sprawl of parking buildings, storage sheds and outbuildings. It was considerably larger than Cloud recalled from his last visit. Teenagers in trademark Gold Saucer character suits waddled here and there, a depressing reminder of the onslaught of such cuteness that waited inside the actual park.   
There were an array of chocobo stables for those that had come aback the long legged, domestic, feathered beasts. A gravel paved lot where trucks, bikes and all fashion of mechanized vehicles rested, as well as a covered garage for those folks that wanted a little more security for their rides.   
His client had given him a GS platinum park passport, with a reserved room in case he needed to wait for the contact’s arrival. He would stand by as witness for the signatures, and give his client a call when the deed was done.   
Since he had a pre-paid admission with all the perks, he chose the covered garage facility for Fenrir, not trusting the rain they’d left behind at the coast not to follow him here. He followed a flow of excited people to the trolley station and stood in line waiting while security checks were performed and trolley fees collected.   
You could get weapons into Gold Saucer, no trouble. In fact they encouraged it. The only problem was, that you couldn’t get hold of them unless you entered the Battle Arena, one of the parks biggest spectator draws, and participated in various grades of mock and not-so-mock tournaments. Anybody that had an interest had to check their weapons at the trolley station security, which as about as high-tech as anything ShinRa had ever come up with in its heyday, so the chances of slipping anything through were next to non-existent. De-weaponed park goers were then free to take the air-trolleys that sped one after another along cables thick as a big man’s body from the mountain station to the desert bound metropolis that was Gold Saucer. It was a two hour ride, complete with food service and on-trolley entertainment and gambling. Each seat back had a little mini slot machine so that passengers could start throwing away their gil post haste. The drinks were gratis, as long as you didn’t want booze, but the food cost outrageously and wasn’t that good to boot.   
Cloud checked his sword. He had no intention of entering any battle arena contest, but he felt better with it in the same complex he occupied instead of good bit of desert away. He drowsed most of the trip, slouched in his seat with his legs stretched out under the seat before him, chin on chest.   
He woke to the increased chatter inside the trolley as people rose from their seats and migrated to the forward windows to get a better look at the approaching mega structure that was Gold Saucer.   
Cloud had seen it before. It was a huge testament to people’s desire for frivolity. To their desire to escape the harsh reality of the real world and immerse themselves in the false cheer that permeated everything in Gold Saucer. Well, almost everything. There were certainly entertainments available to those who preferred grittier things.  
The air trolley pulled into the gaping clown mouth that opened to the main Gold Saucer admittance area. Lines of adults barely containing or in some cases not containing at all, screeching children, stood in wait at the multiple admission purchasing windows. There was a shorter line for the pre-paid park passes and Cloud gratefully melted into that flow of quieter people. A bubbly voice on a loud speaker happily spoke of new park attractions, of upcoming events and shows and other park activities. A repetative music played in the background.   
He gave his voucher over when he’d reached the girl at the ticket counter and she beamed at him as if she were truly happy to see him, just as she’d beamed at the couple before him. He wondered idly how she could hold the expression so long and not cramp the muscles in her face.   
“This is a three day premieum pass.” She chirped. “You have Gold Saucer lodgings reseverved in . . . lets see . . . oh, goodie, the Happy Pirate sector. Here is your room key card. Your premieum pass entitles you to two free Gold Saucers meals a day at any of the fine Gold Saucer restaurants. There are sixteen fantastic Gold Saucer shows playing today and . . .”  
He held up a hand before she could start delving into the endless list of activities. “Are there any messages tagged with that room reservation?”  
The girl’s smile never faultered. She looked down at the cat shaped screen above her keyboard. “Why yes, Mr. Strife, you’ve got a party coming in tomorrow that wishes to meet upon arrival. If you would like a Gold Saucer beeper, we can alert you when your party arrives?’  
“Fine.”   
He took the beeper, which was pink and shaped like a cartoon fish, and walked through the tunnel to the mania of Gold Saucer proper.   
The central avenue of the park had changed a little since his last visit. It was a mammoth dome topped cavern, with all manner of fiber glass sculptures leering down at the people below. Everything from dragons, to angels, to huge chochobos to . . . god, were his eyes deceiving him or had they fit a giant, much cutified version of Ultima Weapon up in the midst of the fiberglass clouds. He shook his head in disgust, letting his eyes drift down to the multitude of fantastic buildings, shops, and eateries that lined what looked to be a authentic cobblestone street. At the end of the long street was a small scale replica of Gold Saucer itself, with an elevator that took guests to the top so that they could look out over the main square.   
There were too many people and too many squalling kids, too much jostling and too much overloud conversation, too many ambling, Gold Saucer trademark characters in costume, weaving in and out amongst the crowd, assuming the patrons would appreciate having chubby paws laid on their persons.  
He swung the pack with the documents inside along with a few other personal essentials onto his shoulder and decided to find his lodging. If he had to spend a day here waiting for his contact, he needed to do it someplace less chaotic than this.   
He found a park map, which guided him to a set of elevators that traveled to the lower levels where most of the parks accommodations were located. The lowest levels were restricted areas, reserved for park maintenance and operation. The attractions were built on the higher levels, some of the wilder rides spanning outside the confines of Gold Saucer itself.   
The Happy Pirate section was . . . well, designed to be just that. Stepping off the elevator was like stepping into the belly of a ship. An old ship, complete with weathered wooden walls, ceiling and walk, old ship’s steering wheels, fishing net and endless other ancient nautical paraphernalia. The only thing it lacked was the rolling tilt of a ship on sea, for which Cloud was grateful.   
Like the authentic hallway, the rooms were small and cabin like, with covered ports and craftily hidden modern amenities behind weathered facades. You turned a miniature ship’s wheel on the wall to reveal the tiny bath compartment. The top of a slanted ship’s desk rolled back and there was a modern keyboard and screen where you could find out anything going on in the park, make dinner reservations at the more popular spots, upgrade your park pass or browse the park gift stores and purchase items without ever leaving the comfort of your room.   
Cloud didn’t find the cabin particularly palatable. It was too small for one thing, and the cover on the porthole was permanent, hinting that the porthole itself lookout out over nothing. He had contemplated sitting in his room and wasting time, but claustrophobia reared its ugly head and set him upon another path.   
He pocketed his room keycard, left his backpack on the bed and went in search of wider spaces. In the elevator he hesitated over a wide selections of destinations and decided upon the Battle Arena. It wasn’t as much a family oriented section of the park, wasn’t usually as loud or as crowded unless there was a feature event, and if he recalled correctly there had been a very good eatery. His stomach reminded his head that it had been close to twenty four hours since he’d eaten anything more than a handful of bar pretzels and it was long overdue.   
He transferred elevators once, and got on the lift for the Battle Arena. From the outside the place gave a convincing portrayal of some massive stone coliseum of old. Around the actual Arena a fake village had been set up, boasting all the shops and restaurants that any good theme park area needed to siphon the gil out of its patrons.   
Cloud got a skewer of grilled meat and vegetables and a mug of dark ale from a vendor, using his premium pass and went to consume it on a bench beneath a towering fiber glass gladiator. The crowds entering the Battle Arena were moderate and mostly adult males. Anyone could enter the games for a fee and fight against an array of Gold Saucer beasts or trained park gladiators. The more popular tournaments, the ones that really drew crowds pitted hopefuls against each other and on no few occasions blood was shed and life was lost. But of course wavers were signed before hand, stating very clearly that if you wanted to take your life in your hands to entertain the masses and put gil in Gold Saucer’s limitless pockets, that was your right, but Gold Saucer was not responsible for limbs lost, blood shed or life cut short. Very few hesitated in signing their lives away.   
He finished his skewer and entered the arena, finding a seat in an empty portion of the spectator stands where he could lean back and prop his boots upon the chair back in front of him. Somebody was down in the central arena, fighting an ice breathing geza lizard. The combatant had two long daggers that he was flailing about in a less than competent manner. He was going to get his ass kicked, but chances were, since this was a park beast, and a low draw afternoon contest, that the handlers would rush out to stop the fight before the poor sod got killed.   
He laid his head back and stared up at the shadows of the high, domed ceiling. There was a poor bird fluttering about up there, that had probably gotten in through a ventilation shaft and been trapped. It might survive indefinitely on the scraps of food park goers left behind, but what a miserable life it would lead, never to see the sky.   
Vincent had said to call. In the same sort of way Tifa might ask, wanting to know he’d made it to the far end of a job okay, even though she knew damned well that there was less chance of him calling home if there was a problem, than if there wasn’t. She still asked. That was the impression he got from Vincent. A faint hint of worry behind a placid mask.   
He frowned, watching the tiny speck of the bird flutter frantically from one beam to another. Trapped and desperate. Shutting his eyes, he listened to the distant sounds of combat. The expulsion of geza lizard energy, a man’s hoarse scream, the applause of the crowd.   
“They’ll pull him out before the lizard eats him.” Someone said, proceeded by the tromping of boots up the stadium steps.   
“Yeah, never get any real blood and guts here anymore.” Someone else complained, as if it were a true shame that more lives weren’t ripped out on the arena floor.   
Cloud lifted his lashes a little, to catch the passage of the complaining men. They were heading for seats above his own, a rough looking pair in faded leather pants and mismatched pieces of body armor about their persons. If it weren’t for the armor, old as it was, he might have taken them for miners come up out of the mountains for a bit of rest and relaxation. They had that hardened look about them. But minors didn’t wear armor. Most honest men didn’t, that wouldn’t expect trouble on a regular basis. He noted in passing, the scarring on the exposed flesh of muscled arms. Decorative mutilation of the flesh in patterns that were not entirely unfamiliar. He canted his head following their ascent, flashes of men in the bar coming back to him. Of the crude, tribal patterns of their scarred arms and faces. Of quicker flashes of the same pattern on the flesh of the pack that had come at him out of the night near the Pit in Midgar.   
But it was only his imagination getting the better of him. The chances of seeing members of the same wasteland alliance here on the western continent were next to nill. There were desperate men all over the world, that had turned more than a little feral in their struggle to survive. Bands of mismatched bandits roamed every territory, so these just happened to have similar markings on their skin. He was letting too little sleep and too many nightmares sway his rational.   
Covertly though, he noted where they settled, a few tiers above and behind him. It shouldn’t have made a difference, if they were what the rational part of his mind insisted they were. But the longer he sat there, with them at his back and himself weaponless, the more his nerves began to twang with unease. Every instinct in his body said don’t let an enemy, imaginary or not at your back and there were certain instincts that Cloud simply couldn’t ignore.   
So he rose, circling the arena as they were supporting the bleeding man out and herding the irate geza lizard into a pen, and appropriated a seat on the opposite side of the stadium, even if it was the crowded side. At least the people here didn’t make the hairs on the back of his arms stand up.   
He sat through six more fights. And even though some of the contests were mildly entertaining, his attention kept wondering to the rag tag pair on the other side of the stadium. It wasn’t until a few hours later, when they finally rose and took their leave that he felt comfortable enough to take his own.


	3. Chapter 3

It took no time at all to cross the Coral range and reach the bountiful plains to the northwest where home lay. A few hours and Sierra was touching down on the landing strip just outside Rocket Town, her big engines slowly revving down to a dead stop, her cargo hatch easing its way down to the tarmac as eager crew waited to touch the sweet ground of home port.   
It was a quaint little town, a settlement built up around what used to be a ShinRa launch facility and a ShinRa rocket that had been the best hope of a lot of folks, Cid foremost amongst them, to get a chance at space. ‘Course, that plan had gone bust, as so many high ideals tended to do, and the rocket that the town had been named for had sat unused and untended, save by a tenacious few, for years, until ShinRa had decided to pack it full of huge materia and send it into the atmosphere against the Sephiroth summoned Meteor. Another major failure that had done nothing but deprive the town of its namesake.   
Them was the breaks, as Cid so often told himself when he was deep into his drink and sulking over lost opportunities. At least he’d been able to scavenge the remnants of the scaffolding of the launch pad to use towards the skeleton of Sierra’s big hanger.   
His land side maintenance crew, all part-timers who held regular jobs in town, had come jogging up the trail from the village when the ship had appeared over Rocket Town’s skies. A good number of townsfolk came too, come to see what he’d brought back with him this trip. He always tried to pick up cargo that would appeal to Rocket Towners on his homebound runs. He’d sell it for a modest profit or sometimes use it to trade for services rendered.   
He exchanged a few greetings with folk on the ground and left the rest to his crew chief to deal with. It was close to dusk and the lightening bugs were out already, flaring up here and there across the field. The hanger was a big dark cave off to his right, only the barest of weak bulbs flickering here and there under its roof. He didn’t have plans to drag the Sierra into it this run, not having any overhauls in mind and maybe having to head out again in a few days if Cloud called for a ride home.   
Vincent had drifted down the cargo ramp somewhere among the confusion of disembarking crew and ground crew boarding. He didn’t see him again until he started the walk down slope from the airstrip to the village and then Vincent simply melted out of the semi-darkness to match Cid’s pace down the dirt path.   
“I was thinking a nice steak for dinner. Grill it out in the backyard.” Cid stuffed his hands into the pockets of his leather pilot’s jacket. “I’ve a taste for some red meat.”  
“Very red.” Vincent gave his assent and Cid grinned, knowing his peculiarities when it came to food.  
“Bloody.” Cid agreed. He’d stop by the butcher’s on the way home, and pick up some beers. It was good to be home. 

He woke up with more room in bed than he’d gone to sleep with, and lay staring up at the purple shadows of the ceiling with an arm flung out across the space that Vincent had occupied not more than a few hours past.   
“Goddamnit.” He murmured, experiencing that familiar little curl of fear that this was one of those absences that would stretch for weeks or months. That Vincent had just got up and left without a word because it was easier that way and the urge had been too strong to stay and make proper good-byes.   
Damned if Cid knew why he put up with it, save for the fact that he’d grown accustomed to having the unpredictable bastard around, even if it was only some of the time, and he had long ago figured out that Vincent was a slave to some of his darker instincts. That sometimes the man just couldn’t help acting the way he did.   
His fears were alleviated somewhat when he saw the long red scarf that Vincent used to keep his hair back hanging off the foot of the bed banister. Vincent might sometimes up and leave quickly, but he never, ever left traces of himself behind. Cid heaved himself up with a sigh, looking around in the darkness for his boxers and finding them on the floor near the foot of the bed. It was a practical room, with hand carved wooden bed big enough for a man to stretch out in, a simple chest of drawers for a man’s belongings, a desk for a man to work late at night if the urge came upon him, and shelves upon shelves of books, and models, parts and components and various other things that had caught his eye over the years. It wasn’t a cluttered room, or a cluttered house, by any means, but it spoke boldly enough of the man who lived there. He pulled on his trousers and found a T-shirt that didn’t smell too bad, snatched a pack of smokes and walked through the night dark house.   
The moon was out, clear as a silver plated bell high over the hills to the east. That’s where Vincent would be, taking in the scent of the night out where there were no townsfolk and no village sounds or village influences. He’d escaped there before on occasion, when he’d come home with Cid.   
Cid grabbed one of the staves by the front door on his way out. Beasts wondered close to town out of the plains or down from the hills some nights, drawn by the lure of padlocked livestock, and a man would be a fool to stroll out in the wilds without something other than fallible mortal flesh to protect himself.   
He lit a smoke as he walked, following no particular path, simply heading towards the gentle hills and the sparse sprinkling of trees that graced them. Why the hell he was out aimlessly wondering the night looking for a creature that blended seamlessly with it was beyond him. Sometimes a man just acted the fool for reasons that went beyond ken.   
He topped a swell of earth with grass up to his calves. There were a few straight boled trees about, and a good deal of chunky rock, poking their heads out of the fertile earth. Big slabs of gray slate that had no business being out here, save that something had hit the mountains miles east of Rocket Town two years back when all shit had broke lose and debris had scattered for miles. So the plains outside of town got a smattering of slate mixed in with the grass. The folks at home were lucky nothing that hit the town. The piece of rock he propped one boot upon now would have flattened a house. He flicked the butt of his cigarette onto it, and used his boot heel to grind it out. He was digging in his back pocket for the pack when he noticed Vincent at his shoulder.   
“SonofaBITCHmotherfucker!” Cid took a startled crabstep backwards, heart pounding in his chest. Vincent melting in out of nowhere was going to be the death of him one day.   
“Goddamnit, I told you not to do that. Make some fucking noise when you come up on a man.”  
“Why did you come?” Vincent canted his head questioningly. His hair was like ink in the darkness, strands of it networking across the pale skin of his face.   
“Because . . . well.” Cid took a deep drag, scowling. “Don’t fucking know, so don’t ask me. Can’t a man want a little fresh air without having to write a dissertation?”  
Vincent lifted a dark brow, mouth twitching.   
“Not even gonna ask what you’re doing out here.” Cid tapped out a cigarette and placed it firmly between his lips, then planted his ass on the rock and lit it, sucking in smoke like much needed oxygen. Vincent sat down next to him, a hand’s breadth away. He offered nothing.   
Cid snorted after a few minutes and decided silence was okay, too,   
But then, Vincent surprised him, by saying in a very soft voice.  
“Cid. You were followed.”  
“Wha- -” was about all he got out before Vincent was shoving him hard to the side and it was only later, as he was rolling to his knees, sputtering in indignation that he realized that those popping cracks he’d heard were bullets hitting the stone where they’d been sitting. He cursed, sweeping the darkness for the shooter, then cursed more when dark figures rushed out of the night, moonlight glinting off the dull metal of armor, and the brighter glint of blades.   
More gunfire, quick, pop pop pops, and he flinched, ducking and bringing up his stave to ward off the descent of a jagged blade, even as he realized that the bullets weren’t flying his way, that there were flashes out there in the dark that were likely Vincent’s doing. He had no time to look and find out, more than occupied with the two shadow faced goons that were trying to eviscerate him.   
He was good with the staff. Had had a damned lot of practice over the years, but he was off his balance and rattled and one of them got past his guard enough to score a slice along his arm from wrist to elbow. He cursed and slammed the end of his staff hard against a shin bone and one of the men howled and staggered, giving Cid the chance to back up a step and avoid the other one’s attempt to slice his throat. He jammed the sharp end of the staff into the man’s gut, playing for keeps if that’s how they wanted it, and twisted it brutally. That man fell, squawking in pain, on his way to a quick death if the fates were kind. If not . . . well, you got what you gave.   
The other one took off, fleeing into the night. Cid took a few steps after him, but the sound of gunfire distracted him and he turned to try and track it down, but there was nothing visible out there but shadow. When he turned back around the man was gone.   
“Sonuvabitch.” He started trotting in the direction he’d thought he’d heard gunfire. Saw one body on the ground, then another. Bandits by what he could see of them in the dark. What the hell had the world come to, bandits this close to Rocket Town?   
“You’re bleeding.”   
And there was Vincent, calm as the day was long, melting out the night, gun reholstered. The only way could you tell he was on edge were his eyes, blood red beginning to overwhelm the amber.   
“Aw . . shit.” Cid twisted his arm to see. Blood dripped off his elbow, slow and warm. “Where the hell did they come from? Just what the town needs is bandits holing up in the hills.”  
Vincent stared in the direction of Rocket Town. “It held purpose. This attack.”  
“The fuck . . . purpose? Other than lifting our wallets?”  
Vincent shook his head, glanced at Cid with a frown that was darker and moodier than usual. “We should go back, so you can tend to that.”  
“Yeah.” Cid shook blood off his hand and started walking.   
They were still a good ways from town when Cid noticed the orange glow of fire. Something in his belly flip flopped and he started jogging, white faced and cursing under his breath.   
It wasn’t the town that was burning, but the hanger. He topped the last gentle rise out of breath and sweating and saw Sierra burning. His heart dropped into his gut. Vincent caught his arm as he stopped there, swaying so bad from a sudden bout of light-headedness that he had to bend over for a moment and lean on his knees.   
Goddamnit. Goddamnit! He shook off Vincent’s hand, eyes stinging from either sweat or ¬– God help him – emotion, and started running full out for the airstrip.

It took them an hour to kill the last of the flames. High octane fuel had the tendency to burn hot and fast and it was only thanks to the grace of good luck that tanks had been running close to empty after crossing the sea and flying halfway across the western continent. If they’d have been full, the whole ship would have gone up in one mother of an explosion. As it was, the big aft engine was scorched black, metal twisted and ragged from heat and the initial explosion. The massive turbine propeller had landed about a fifty feet away, sitting upright, two of the blades having pierced the earth.   
Cid sat with his crew chief and one of the ground crew who’d been here when the engine had blew, all of them fighting to catch their breaths and rest overtaxed bodies. He had a cigarette between his lips, but he hadn’t the energy yet to reach into his pocket for the match needed to light it.   
It was a cryin’ shame, the mangling of a fine piece of craftsmanship like the Sierra, but it could have been worse. The explosion hadn’t done much more than surface damage to the aft hull next to the engine. From just sitting hear eyeballing the exterior damage, he figured there might be some salvageable sections of the damaged pod. He have to wait until the engine had cooled down good and proper, and have a look inside to see Whether the small scale machine shop here in Rocket Town could handle the project. He had spare parts lying about, but not an entire engine pod.   
“Goddamned the luck.” He said. His voice was hoarse, from exertion and prolonged and very loud cursing. A nice cool beer about now would have been a miraculous thing. He hadn’t seen hide nor hair of Vincent since he’d started hell bent down the slope towards his burning ship. He hadn’t had the time to really notice till now. Chances were Vincent had gone back into the hills on the heels of the bandits that had attacked them. He couldn’t blame him, Vincent being better suited to hunting down human vermin than putting out flames. He bitterly hoped the thieving bastards got to meet the demons under the veneer of Vincent’s humanity up close and personal.  
“Capn’! Capn’!!” One of his younger ground crew came galloping towards him from around the opposite side of Sierra. The boy was red-faced and panting.   
“What now?” Cid finally started fishing for his matchbook.  
“Capn’, we think we found a bomb in the other engine. O’malley thinks it might have a dud ignition switch.”  
Cid stopped in mid-grope, cigarette falling from slack lips.   
What the fuck was going on here? 

 

Cloud came awake at the ringing of his cell. One quiet little ring and it went silent. He lay for moment, staring up at the darkness of the plank ceiling overhead, waiting to see if whoever had called would try again.   
The windowless room gave him no indication what time it was, but his body’s internal clock suggested that it was early morning, an hour or two before he might normally rouse.   
With his contact absent and himself marooned for the time being in Gold Saucer, there was nothing that pressed for his attention enough to warrant getting out of the not terribly uncomfortable bunk and prowling the theme park. He might as well allow himself the luxury of lazing about until the sun had fully risen.   
The quiet phone bothered him. It wasn’t as if he would have bothered to answer it if it had rung a proper amount of times, but at least the folks that generally called him habitually left messages if they had anything of import to relay.   
The phone was in one of the side pockets of his trousers which lay across the back of the chair, just within his reach, so he stretched out an arm and fumbled with the buckle one handed, then snagged the slim little cell out and flipped it open, looking at the number of the last incoming call.   
7Th Heaven. Tifa. She always left messages. Always. But maybe, she’d misdialed, realized her mistake and severed the connection. That was more than likely the case. It was what he would have done.  
He tossed the phone onto the desk and settled back, folding an arm under his head and shut his eyes determined to find just a little more sleep.   
It occurred to him, as the minutes dragged by, that Tifa’s phone manners were by far better honed than his own. Tifa practiced courtesies that it never occurred to him to offer. Maybe it had been Barret, hitting the wrong speed dial number with one of his big fingers. Or one of the kids playing on the phone.   
He sighed and rolled onto his side, fluffing the pillow.   
It was awfully early to be up and making calls.   
He sat up and reached for the phone, dialed the number of the bar and got a busy signal. Okay, so it had been a misdial and whoever had done it was on the phone now with the intended recipient of the original call. He was being particularly unreasonable getting antsy over this.   
Still, he was up now and the likelihood of getting back to sleep was slim. If his contacts took their time getting here, all he had to look forward to this morning was breakfast and finding that all elusive spot in Gold Saucer that was noticeably devoid of the repetitive music, bouncing park mascots and hyper active children.   
He took a good long time in the small shower, leaning against the slick, tile wall and letting the endless supply of hot water sluice across his skin. It was the nicest thing he’d experienced since getting here. Regretfully, he shut off the water and dried off, giving his hair a quick pass with a towel, before pulling on pants and sitting down on the bunk to pick up the phone again.   
Redial. And a busy signal. He snapped the phone shut and sat there, water dripping onto his shoulders from the ends of wet hair. It was the business line. Tifa never stayed on this long.   
A happy little chirping intruded upon the silence of the room. He almost started to flip the cell open before it registered that his phone had never in all its time in his possession had such a regretfully cheerful ring tone.   
It was the pink, fish-shaped Gold Saucer beeper, vibrating mindlessly on the desk where he had tossed it. He took a breath and reached for it. It quieted as soon as he hit the message receive button, displaying a number to call to get his message.  
He did so and a happy Gold Saucer employee on the other end informed him that his party had arrived and would await his arrival in their suite in the Island Paradise section of the park.   
Finally.  
It was enough of a distraction to take his mind off the busy signal at the bar. He finished dressing, then pulled the documents he’d been entrusted out of his pack and headed towards the elevators. The park schematic on the lift indicated that the Island Paradise section was one of the new park attractions. It took up a portion of Gold saucer that had been extended out over the desert next to the Battle Arena. The main draw was the huge wave pool, complete with water slides and activities and the tropical beach area with its cabanas, bars, restaurants and beach shops, that curved the perimeter of the dome the whole section occupied. Great clear skylights let in real sunlight from above during the day and mega wattage artificial lights illuminated the area at night, keeping the fabricated beach perpetually bathed in warm brightness.   
The guest accommodations in this sector were the most expensive to be had in the resort. Luxury suites that lined the outer rim of the Paradise dome, each with vast windows that looked down over the million galleon wave pool and palm tree spotted beach.   
Cloud’s contact, predictably, had arranged the meeting in one of these suites. Even the hallway was high-gil, with lazily spinning wicker ceiling fans, thick carpeting and lush potted plants.   
He found the room number and rapped on the door. It swung inward, unlatched. He stood for a moment, hand still raised, the hairs on the back of his arm prickling. He pushed it open and lowered his lashes marginally as the bright sunlight flooding in from the window that made up the whole back wall of the suite hit eyes accustomed to dimmer, interior lighting. The man at the big, lacquered desk before the window was in silhouette. His back to Cloud in a fine, hand carved chair. There was a briefcase on the desk next to him and what looked like paperwork spread neatly out on the desk. The man didn’t move, though he had to have heard the knock on the door.   
Cloud took a step into the room, a large central chamber with a sunken floor and sliding doors leading off to both the left and right sides.   
“Mr. Kanara . . . ?” He ventured, then stopped warily, picking up a familiar acrid scent in the ventilated air. His eyes drifted down, discerning the flare of dark color on the creme colored carpet under the chair and desk. A spreading stain of red so dark it was almost black and more of it sliding slowly down the chair legs.  
“Have you called home lately?” A low, hoarse voice intruded upon the quiet death of the room and Cloud hissed out a breath between his teeth, reaching for a weapon that wasn’t there, even as he spun. He caught a flash of a face, the flash of tundra pale eyes before the body hit him. Instinct registered other things, like the gleaming length of familiar blades following the line of corded forearms and he twisted to avoid being pierced by the front end of those, but not enough to avoid the bone jarring impact of body against body that launched him backwards, over the desk. He had a split second view of the mutilated form of the man who was pinned there with a shard of metal through the gaping cavity of his mouth to the back of the chair, and then his back, or the business ends of those arm blades, hit inch thick Plexiglas with enough impact to shatter what should have been unbreakable by normal collision. Then he was free falling along with a shower of glass shards and a madman trying to get his hands around his throat, towards the vast surface of the wave pool two hundred feet below. 

Hitting the water was no less impactful than breaking through the window. It stole Cloud’s breath and there was nothing to replace it with save slightly salty liquid. They’d hit at the deep end, near the big grates that hid the turbines responsible for creating the endless cycle of waves. Cloud caught sight of the massive grate through blue tinted water on his way to the sandy bottom. He’d lost his accoster somewhere along the way, but he hardly had time to appreciate that bit of luck in his desperate bid for the surface and air. He broke the surface, gasping for precious air, hair a streaming mess in his eyes. Breath still came hard, body still stunned by the twin impacts. Treading water, he swiped the hair back from his forehead, desperately searching for the feral bastard that had attacked him.   
Diablo was nowhere in sight. Which meant . . .   
Damn. Something solid and intractable caught hold of his ankle, yanking him under before he had the presence of mind to draw a lung full of air. He twisted, kicking out with his free foot and making contact with some bit of flesh. Something hit him, a fist, hard in the thigh, and again, sending fingers of sharp pain up his torso. He contorted, curving his body and slamming an elbow against what might have been a head in the murky depths of the deep end. The grip let go and Cloud kicked for the surface. He reached it and struck out for the side of the pool, where a maintenance ladder led to a ledge that ran the circuit of the water until it reached the shallows at the beach.   
He pulled himself up, wet clothing making limbs seem twice as heavy. He turned, scanning the rolling surface of the water and finding a dark head bobbing there, pale eyes following his movements, thin mouth curved into a faint grin. Cloud scowled, eyes traveling up the back wall of the dome to the window they’d crashed through. Several figures peered down out of the jagged break in the window, a motley, ragged collection of men even from this distance. More wastelanders and armed, as Diablo was, when by all rights, none of them should have been able to get a weapon past Gold Saucer security.   
He looked back to the water and Diablo was gone.   
Fuck.   
Cloud started running along the ledge towards the shore and solid ground. Diablo came out of the water at him, as if propelled, armblades wet and glinting in the sunlight. Cloud sprung over the slash at his ankles, and the blades sliced through the ledge behind him with a screech of metal.   
He had almost reached the beach when startled screams pierced the air and bathing suit clad people began to scatter as a ragtag group of wastelanders poured out onto the sand from the main lifts. Armed men that raised weapons and fired, bullets hitting sand and water and the metal wall of the dome around the ledge.   
Taking on Diablo and his shadow-ops honed skills weaponless was an unfair battle . . . tackling his flunkies was a different story altogether.   
He dove across the ten foot section of shallow water that separated the ledge and the beach and hit the sand rolling, came up under the guard of the closest gun wielding wastelander and slammed the heel of his palm up under the man’s jaw hard enough to shatter bone. He was on to the next one before the first man had even crumpled to the sand, deprived the man’s limp fingers of the gunblade he’d tried to use on Cloud and turned and fired a shot at the figure rushing towards him out of the surf.   
Diablo deflected the bullet with one armblade and slashed the other through the air. A funnel of destruction flared out in its wake. Cloud cursed and dove to the sand, even as heat energy shattered the air over his head, splintering palm trees, beach chairs and a row of cabana’s. The screams were louder now as even people far down the beach realized that something was terribly amiss with the idyllic world they’d paid to indulge in.   
The materia fueled blast had ripped a crevice in the thick metal of the section wall, jagged metal and spitting conduits revealing what might have been a maintenance tunnel beyond. It was a better escape route than the glass fronted lifts that would have left him vulnerable to attack from the ground.   
He darted towards the rift, sidling past twisted metal and into the red-lit space of the tunnel. He took the left hand route, running all out along grate covered floors that echoed with his every step. He heard the clatter of pursuit as it entered the tunnel.   
He came across a door. The handle wouldn’t give. He braced himself against the opposite wall and slammed a foot against it. Again and the lock gave, the door slamming inwards and banging against crates stacked against the inside wall. A storage room from the look of it, with crates of fiber glass armor and fake weaponry. There was a doorless exit with a curtain shielding this back room from whatever was on the other side. Sweeping past that, he found himself behind the sales counter of a park gift shop. The pimply faced employee gaped at him, starting to complain of his presence behind the counter. Cloud ignored him, sliding across the counter top and hurrying to the front of the shop.   
The Battle Arena. He recalled that the new Island Paradise section neighbored this one and it occurred to him that his checked sword, a weapon very much capable of dealing with Diablo’s suped-up arm blades was in the storage facility at the Arena registration desk.   
He strode out of the shop, and into the village at the bottom of the Arena stairs. There wasn’t much of a crowd here this early in the morning. The people that were here were blithely unaware of any disturbance. Park security was on the alert though, he noted, as several Gold Saucer security personal trotted past, busily whispering into walkie talkies. He kept his own pace sedate enough not to attract their attention, having of a bit of park rule breaking of his own in mind.   
It wasn’t until he heard screams from the Arena village that he started running for the stairs, skidding around the bronze banister and onto the landing, taking the steps three at a time in his haste to reach the top. There was gunfire from below, but this time it wasn’t aimed at him, so he figured the park security had been unlucky enough to try and stop Diablo and his pack’s pursuit.   
And there was the registration desk, with a frowning girl behind the counter, craning her neck to see what the disturbance was below. She recalled the smile that was supposed to be plastered on her face as he bounded up to the counter.   
“Hello. Would you care to enter the Battle Arena as a contestant?”  
“Is that the keycard to that door?” He jerked his chin to the thick, metal barred door behind her. There was a keycard panel next to it, and a keycard dangling from the attendant’s neck.   
She blinked at him, then started at a nearer burst of gunfire and the shrieking of someone on the stair.   
“Never mind.” He snatched the card, breaking the thin chain that supported it before she registered his movement, vaulting the counter and striding past her as she was rubbing the back of her neck, trying to figure out what had happened.   
“Hey, you can’t . . .”  
“If I were you, I’d hide.” He suggested, swiping the card. The locking panel blinked green and the door slid open upon rows of metal shelving stacked with checked weapons. 

 

“Where the hell have you been?” Cid was in a damned touchy mood. Exhaustion and having smoked the last cigarette short of walking home and abandoning the mess at the airstrip hadn’t much helped improve it.   
Vincent appearing at the foot of the scaffolding that they’d set up under the damaged engine without so much as a “Hey, Cid, hope you weren’t worried, but I’m back,” likened to make him pop a blood vessel.   
Vincent squinted up at him, shading his eyes against the morning light, looking none the worse for wear that Cid could tell from first glance. At least not on the outside.   
“There were three more of them.”  
“Yeah?” Cid spat over the side of the scaffolding and glowered down. “The motherless sons of bitches sabotaged my fucking ship.”  
“I know. I saw one fleeing from the hanger last night.”  
“No shit? Didn’t think to mention it to me?”  
“You had other things on your mind.”  
A man couldn’t argue with that. Cid swore under his breath, then tapped the blackened shell of the engine pod with the ten pound wrench he’d been using to loosen the casing. “Fucked her up right bad. Had another half-assed bomb in the other engine, but it didn’t blow.”  
“The ship was a secondary target . . .”  
Cid lifted a brow at that, waiting for the completion of Vincent’s thought.  
“They were sent after you.”  
“After . . . ? The fuck you say.” He threw down the wrench and climbed down the scaffold so he could get a better vantage of Vincent’s eyes and whatever madness he was sporting. “Why the hell would a bunch of sorry assed, incompetent hill bandits be after me? Why the fuck blow up my engine? Goddamnit, did you catch one of them?”  
Vincent inclined his head. “They weren’t expecting me.”  
“Yeah, well, I hope you acquainted yourself real well.”  
Vincent gave him a look that spoke volumes on that subject, and Cid doubted any of the ones that had got away were alive to brag about it now.   
“They were supposed to make sure there was no one to go back to Gold Saucer . . no one to back up Cloud.”  
“Cloud? This is about the fucking kid?” Cid waved an angry hand at his ship. He paced a short circuit under the engine, exhausting his extensive vocabulary of foul language, then stopped and glared back at Vincent, who stood patiently waiting for the fit to pass.   
“If the shit-eating bastards think they’re going to get away with this . . .” he couldn’t for the life of him come up with an adequate word for the heart wrenching mess they’d made of his engine, so he waved an angry hand at it instead. “All ‘cause somebody’s after Cloud . . . they got another think coming.”

 

It occurred to Cloud some time after he’d retrieved his sword, that perhaps continuing to flee the problem would have been a better plan that engaging in a battle with two suped-up, materia-laced weapons in the midst of a towering resort crowded with thousands of innocent bystanders.   
There was a rift the size of a small canyon that ran through the floor and up the outer wall of the Battle Arena dome. Bright desert sky showed through the lips of twisted metal. If they hadn’t been a fifteen hundred feet up it might have made a handy route of escape. As things stood, Cloud had chosen the less intimidating leap down through the mangled floor to the section below.   
Diablo had followed, fast and merciless and just damned . . . good. Good as only a seasoned Soldier could be. Clever and unforgiving and possessing dirty infighting tricks that Cloud never knew existed. And Cloud countered them by instinct as much as skill and managed to keep from incurring mortal injury, though he was bleeding in a half dozen places.   
Cloud had the longer reach, but his opponent’s twin blades were blindingly fast and incredibly adept at blocking his thrusts and slashes.   
They had gone through a partition into the bright, fantastical setting of Wonder Square, and parents and children scattered like dumb herd beasts who’d just discovered predators dropped into their midst. Cloud cursed the luck, having no desire to create the type of destruction he knew the both of them were capable of in such a place where so many innocents might perish. Diablo seemed to have no problem with it, flinging a surge of fire based energy at Cloud and he took the impact head on, afraid that if he deflected it or simply avoided it would wreak havoc among the people cowering at the edges of his peripheral vision. The sword took the brunt of it, but he was still tossed backwards forty feet and into the breast of a great fiberglass cartoon cat. The thing shattered around him, toppling backwards. He fought his way out, body still thrumming from the impact, searching desperately for Diablo.   
He found him across the cobbled street, gripping the arm of a young girl of perhaps twelve or thirteen. His other arm rested upon her shoulder, business side of the arm blade just touching the skin of her throat.   
Cloud stood there, breath coming hard and fast, the hand holding the heavy sword beginning to tremble ever so slightly now that he was devoid of motion. It was the first moment of stasis he’d had since Diablo had attacked him in the suite above the wave pool. The first moment where he could put more than two thoughts together that didn’t concern fighting for his life.   
He’d asked if Cloud had called home. As if the bastard knew there was a need for it. And he stood there now, a twisted smile upon thin lips, lean, lined face too calm and too composed for a man that had just fought through three levels of decimated theme park. As if he’d enjoyed it.  
“Let her go.” Cloud ground out. He shifted, transferring his free hand to the hilt of the sword, holding it two handed.   
“No. I don’t think so.” Diablo leaned over and pressed his jaw against the girl’s plump cheek. Like his short hair, his eyebrows were black, peppered with silver strands. There were the faint lines of pale scarring on his lean, tanned cheeks. More faded scars on his neck and arms. Old scars that didn’t seem as much tribal design as battle wounds.   
“Why?” Cloud hissed frustrated/angry/tired/confused/scared. “Why are you doing this?”  
“Why? Why?” Diablo’s voice rose, his face turning angry and feral of a sudden, eyes glowing with inner turmoil. With that same mako-fueled madness that Cloud had seen before. “You tell me, you little shit!! You tell me!! You’re the one that asked for it! You!! Not me!”  
Cloud stared at him, baffled, at a loss for a reply to that bit of insanity. He shook his head, mute denial of any such thing. Diablo canted his head, the anger fading as fast as it had come, the predator’s smile coming back.   
“Do you hear the bells?”  
Cloud blinked, off his guard. Of course there were alarms ringing now. Keeping the problem secret from its guests had become a mute point, and the whole of the resort blared with warning sirens, loudspeakers directing patrons to move quickly, but calmly to the air-trolley bays for immediate evacuation from the park.   
“What?”  
Diablo started moving towards him, forcing the girl before him. There was a thin trail of blood trickling down the side of her neck where the edge of the armblade rested. Cloud brought the sword up, eyes narrowed in warning. Diablo simply kept coming, the girl as a shield, until Cloud had to lower the tip of the blade or risk Diablo impaling the child upon it.   
“What do you want?” he asked, very softly.  
Just as quietly, Diablo whispered. “Don’t move, or I might slice her neck clean through.”  
The girl looked up at him, large wet eyes, tear streaked freckled cheeks, desperate and terrified and pleading. Cloud clamped his jaw and let the tip of his sword touch cobblestone.   
They were close now. Cloud could feel the whisper of the girl’s body, the heat of her fear, but it was nothing compared to the hair raising intensity he felt radiating from Diablo’s body. He met those wolf pale eyes, less than two foot distant and lifted his chin, refusing to blink or take the instinctive step away that his survival sense demanded.   
Diablo’s mouth curved into a wry smile. “You’re so pretty,” he whispered. “Just like in my dreams.”   
The girl’s eyes widened, her mouth forming a surprised ‘O’. Cloud looked down at her in consternation, at the blade protruding from her chest and into his own body. It took a shocked moment for the pain to hit, for him to stagger backwards, wrenching himself free, his left side beginning to throb as flesh and muscle became aware that it had taken damage. He put a hand to his side, above his hip bone and the glove came away wet and bloody. He looked back up, a furious tide of anger beginning to surge in time with the throb of blood/pain and met Diablo’s fist full on. 

The Little Bronco wasn’t as fast as Sierra, not as magnificent a metal beast by a long shot, but she was a trusty little plane that a man who’d had his hands into all of her inner workings could trust to fly him safely across the four hundred miles of grass land, mountain and desert that separated Rocket Town from Gold Saucer.   
Truth be told, flying with the wind in his face, his body feeling every quiver and tilt of the plane that supported him, every change in air pressure, every temperamental air current ¬– well, it was invigorating. It took Cid back to his roots.   
Vincent didn’t much like it, the openness of the little two seater, twin-engine, prop-plane. Granted, he didn’t utter a word of complaint, but Cid knew he hated the vulnerability, the lack of anyplace shadowed and cool to escape to out of the brilliant light of a cloudless day. He just sat hunched in the back seat, between whipping hair and high-collar, a faceless entity occupying space in the plane.   
When they touched down in the same mountain valley Sierra had used to land and drop Cloud off the day before, Vincent was out of the plane before Cid had even killed the engines.   
“Something is wrong.” He said as Cid climbed down from the cock-pit. Cid had figured that himself when he’d made his fly-by over the air-trolley area, before landing, Granted there were usually a lot of folk coming and going from the park, but the area around the trolley complex was teaming with mulling crowds. There was a hell of a lot of traffic on the main road that wound from the Air-trolley area through the most assessable of the Coral mountain passes and eventually to the railway. All of it was heading out, some mass exodus from a park that most folk champed at the bit to get into.  
They headed into the fray. Cid had to shoulder his way through the thickest portions of it, past irate parents and squalling brats, angry men and bitching women all of whom seemed to be yammering about high handed park security, the chances of refunding of park admission, of park liability, of vacations cut short and more interestingly, of some ruckus that nobody could agree to the details of that had torn through the park, leaving destruction in its wake and causing the evacuation to begin with. There were talk of casualties, as well.  
After a great deal of fighting the outgoing current of the crowd, Cid got to the barricade that had been erected by the Air-trolley entrance gates. A line of beefy, park security goons were keeping people from the in-going platform. The trolley-cars were still coming in and letting folks off, but they were heading back empty.   
Cid shouldered his way close, wondering what the chances were of talking his way onto one of those cars. A big slab of muscle held up a hand when he got too close.  
“Sorry sir. The park is temporarily closed.”  
“What the hell happened out there?”  
“Sorry sir, we don’t have that information.”  
“I got a friend that was in the park. How do I find him?”  
“Not everyone has left Gold Saucer yet, sir. You can check at the Trolley administration office after the last patron has left and see if what they can do to help you.”  
“Yeah? I heard talk that you had dead out there. That true?”  
“I don’t have that information, sir. You’ll have to check with administration when the evacuation is complete.”  
“Yeah, well a lot of help you were.” Cid grumbled and turned to complain to Vincent, but Vincent wasn’t there and god knew how long Cid had been traversing this crowd alone not even realizing it.   
Cat-footed bastard.   
There wasn’t much else to do then, but canvas the crowd while he waited for Vincent to turn up again. He pieced together a fair bit of information while he waited. Shady looking guys with weapons that weren’t supposed to be in the park. Gun-shots being fired indiscriminately and no few Gold Saucer patrons wounded as a by-product. Guys with swords that could only be material laced ripping through section after section of the park. Some claimed that one of the new domes had been sheared off the main support trunk of the park and fallen into the desert, but others denied this claim, saying that it had only been greatly damaged. There were a hundred stories from people that were angry now that the fear had faded. He talked to no few that fretted over missing friends or loved ones, but the most vocal of those inevitably got claimed by park personal desperately trying to calm a situation that teetered on chaos.   
By the time Vincent got back, hours later, Cid was tired, pissed and jonesing for a drink of hard liquor so bad he could almost taste the burn of it on his tongue. Vincent just showed up again, finding Cid where he’d retreated back to the Little Bronco to take a rest in the shade of the wings.   
“Where the fuck . . .?” he started, ready to unload his frustrations of the last few hours where they rightly belonged, when Vincent withdrew from the voluminous folds of his cloak, a damned big-assed sword.   
Cid looked from the sword to Vincent, then back to the sword again. He remembered to shut his mouth. Weren’t many folks that could wield a thing like that, and just standing this close, a man that had been around his share of powerful weapons in his time could feel the hair-tingling aura of materia-laced force emanating from it. Without a doubt, it was one of Cloud’s nasty little collection.   
“Okay, let me rephrase. How the fuck did you get that?”  
“Park security had it.”  
“Yeah? Park Security where?”  
Vincent lifted a brow at him, shrugging. “Gold Saucer.”  
Cid spat and cursed and gave Vincent a narrow eyed glare. “Well, Goddamnit, least you coulda done is tell me you were heading out there.” Damned if Cid had seen him sneak aboard one of the empty trolleys ¬– but then, that was the whole point of sneaking aboard, wasn’t it? Not being seen. And Vincent was the master of that skill.   
“So I take it, Cloud wasn’t there.”  
Vincent shook his head. “The people who did this, fled. There were a great many bodies left in their wake. Park security is very agitated at the moment, very unforthcoming, but they seemed certain that this weapon wielded by one of the participants of the – disturbance.”  
“How’d you get it away from them?”  
Vincent shrugged again, not bothering with an answer. “It wasn’t theirs. Cloud will want it back.”  
“Shit. If Cloud wasn’t one of the bodies out there and he left without his sword – that don’t sound good.”  
“No.” Vincent agreed.


	4. Chapter 4

Cloud came halfway out of the sluggish, lurid nightmare he’d been experiencing, at the distant ringing of his phone. Vaguely he felt the vibration of the thing against his leg where it rested in one of the big pockets down the outside of his trousers. He couldn’t quite fight his way out of the mire, though, trapped in a maze of pain and the clogging webwork of - something - that tangled with the conscious working of his brain. Distantly, he felt hands upon his body, patting down his pants legs until they discovered the place where the ringing phone was, then intruding upon the pocket, and letting him roll back onto whatever painfully hard, vibrating surface he was lying upon.  
“Hello.” A low, rough voice broke the ring tone, then a humorless chuckle. “Sorry, he can’t come to the phone right now.”   
A soft click as the phone was closed, and Cloud momentarily won the battle with his eye lids, lashes opening just enough to see the cell arc through the air and land with a silent little thump on sand. Then it was gone, swallowed up by the movement of whatever it was he was riding in.   
He shut his eyes again, tired/hurting/dizzy and let the mire suck him back down.

 

The fire in sector 5 hadn’t been hard to put out. It had been a small one compared to the inferno that had followed Meteor ripping through the city two years plus past. Still it made residents who woke up to the sound of sirens and the glow of orange flickering outside their windows nervous, those of them that had been here during the cataclysm recalling too vividly the destruction that had cut through the city. But less than an hour after it had started, it was out, so people relaxed and went back to bed and their own personal nightmares.  
Tifa didn’t have that luxury. Her bed was in building that at the moment was too filled with the arid scent of smoke to want to venture into for long. The fire had started in the unfinished portion of the warehouse flush with the bar. An electric circuit box had started it . . . well, technically a half dozen rounds of high caliber bullet spray hitting the electric box had started it, but since Barret had been the originator of that spray, she chose to blame the box when explaining the fire to the volunteer fire fighters who had bravely rushed into the warehouse to put the fire out.   
Thank god the bastards who’d started the whole mess were long gone. One way or another. Tifa shivered at the memory of waking up with a dreadlocked, tattooed intruder about to slice a ragged knife across her throat. She’d returned the surprise, kicking him square between the legs, then slamming a fist into his face, shattering his nose and giving him another reason to howl. He’d gone out the window after that, helped along by a roundhouse kick from Tifa and she’d stood there after, breathing hard, shivering as it occurred to her that she’d absolutely seen this guy before.   
A month ago in the bar, one of the bunch that had killed Annie and ambushed Cloud near the Pit. Then she’d done something alien to her, she’d panicked, developing an unreasonable concern about Cloud, out there all by his self, and she snatched up a phone and hit the number one speed dial number programmed in.   
She got in one ring before the door to her room crashed open slamming into her, knocking the phone out of her grasp and onto the floor with painful little chirp, at which point worrying about Cloud, who could very well take care for himself, seemed a minor concern at best.   
All hell broke loose. Barret got into it, rushing into the fray with nothing more that boxers on. Marlene and Denzel woke up screaming and Tifa tore through the rag tag bastards between her and them with renewed vigor, ordering the kids out the window in their room and down the fire escape.   
They’d handled it, Barret and herself, taking down a half dozen wastelanders and chasing off the remaining few. The kids living in the warehouse were all clustered out in the street, holding precious belongings in fear that yet another refuge would be taken from them. Tifa did her best to assure them that that wasn’t the case now.   
7th Heaven’s back room and only the southern most part of the adjoining warehouse had taken the brunt of the fire. She had a lot of repair work ahead of her.   
“Looks like you’ve had a little bad luck, Lockhart.”  
She turned, blinking smoke reddened eyes and picked out Reno with Rude’s big shape behind him threading through the crowd of fire fighters, curious neighbors and milling children.   
“A little early for you to be up, isn’t it?” she inquired.  
Reno grinned at her, eyes traveling down her body, from the tank top to the panties she’d been sleeping in, to bare legs and soot blacked feet. They hadn’t let her back inside to find any decent clothing. She cocked her head letting him look his fill.   
“Now why don’t you always dress like this? I’m liking the look on you.”  
“Man, you can reign it in or get a smack across the mouth,” Barret growled, stalking up, grafted metal gunarm gleaming dully, dark skin smudged with patches of soot.  
Reno gave him a brief once over, then shrugged and glanced back at his silent partner. “It doesn’t look so good on him, eh, Rude?”  
If Rude had an opinion he kept it to himself.   
“What do you want?” Tifa sighed. “We’re a little busy right now.”  
“Cloud out of town?” Reno asked.  
“What’s it to you?” Barret took a threatening step forward. Rude shifted, moving a half a step in front of Reno warningly. Reno grinned.  
“He’s not here.” Tifa said wearily.  
“Hummp. You’d never guess it, with all this.” Reno waved a hand at the bar. “Wastelanders responsible?”   
He phrased it in a way that said very clearly that he knew they were. Tifa frowned and nodded assent, getting the feeling that there was more going here than Reno’s morbid curiosity.   
“Yeah. The same ones from last month. I’m sure you remember.”  
“Sure. I still have Cloud’s sword. I look at it every night and . . well . . ah . . ,” He snapped his mouth shut, rather regretting that choice of words, Tifa thought. One got the feeling Rude rolled his eyes behind his black shades before looking up at the shadows of the beamwork high overhead.   
“ANYway.” Reno coughed and continued. “Wanna take a ride uptown?”  
“Why?” Tifa asked suspiciously.   
“‘Cause I like getting girl’s in their panties in the back seat of my car.”  
“That’s it, I’m gonna kick your ass.” Barret growled. Tifa laid a hand on his meaty fist and forestalled the violence.   
“What’s uptown?”  
Reno shrugged, casting Barret an amused glance. “The boss.”  
“Ah. And this has to do with . . . this?” she waved a hand at the scorched bar?”  
“It just might.” 

 

He became aware again by degrees. First of the pain at his wrists, then the burning ache of shoulders, the two combined almost drowning out the duller throb in his side. The blood beneath his temples pounded, slow and steady and deafening. Cloud forced his eyes open and blinked up at his wrists above his head, encircled by thick metal cuffs laced through the lowest link of an industrial size, rusting chain that disappeared into the shadows above. His feet just barely touched earth, which accounted for the ache in shoulders and wrists. How long he’d been hanging there, he could only guess.  
Where he was, was also in question. Before his head even cleared enough to take in the details of the chamber, he smelled the acrid tang of a great deal of rusting metal, of human waste, of sweat and blood.   
He arched his aching back, stretching to get his toes on the floor and relieve some of the pressure off his arms, gently testing the durability of the manacles that bound his wrists and finding them quite adequate for the task.   
It was a bunker, he thought, following the line of ceiling into shadow. An old one, long abandoned from the look and the smell of it. Probably a ShinRa outpost dating back - - God, before he’d ever dreamed of joining the ranks of Soldier. Claimed now by less fastidious dwellers.   
The floor was littered with debris, and a large grate lay not too far from where he hung, covering what could have been a platform lift. The faint impression of graffiti marred the pock marked walls, years and years of it, suggesting this place had been a haven to miscreants for quite a while. There was a ramp leading up to a big set of closed metal doors, the size of which suggested this bunker had been used for large equipment. There was a door, half off its hinges leading deeper into the bunker, but no other outlet.   
The pack gathered around the shadows of the walls, milling about luridly flickering scrapheap fires that made the shadows dance like demons upon the walls. He could hear the humm of their talk now that his head had cleared. The harsh sound of their laughter as they spoke among themselves, separated into little sub-groups, lurking and waiting, like any pack, for the commands of their alpha male.   
The tactical part of his mind took account of their numbers, dozens of them, mostly men, but a few females in the group, all of them dirty and the worst sort of desperate. The sort of desperate that took away a man’s morals and his inhibitions and let him commit atrocities without a second thought.   
Like their leader. But Diablo wasn’t desperate, he was simply deranged.   
Cloud recalled the blade impaling the child, covered in her blood as it pierced him. Remembered Diablo’s pale eyes as he’d done it. He flinched, cringing at the sanguine clarity of that memory.   
He must have made the chain clank as he rotated, trying to take in his surroundings, for their attention drifted towards him, and interest shifted through the shadows like a virus. They sauntered towards him, the boldest of them. He narrowed his gaze, glaring a warning as they came near, circling him, like a pack sizing up wounded prey.   
A few of them touched him, taunting his helplessness, pushing him so that he lost his precious toe hold footing and spun in his chains. He hissed, no bleating lamb to any slaughter, and lashed out with his foot, catching a sneering, one eyed man dead in the throat with the heel of his boot. Most of the others watched the man fall, unsympathetic as he grasped ineffectually at a crushed windpipe.   
“Son of a bitch.” One of them surged up to him with a drawn blade, more interested in retaliation than concern for the dying. “I should slice open your belly and let your guts spill out for that. Teach you a fucking lesson.”  
Cloud felt the press of blade through his sweater. He could probably twist and take this one out too, but hobbled as he was the others would take him down.   
The issue ended up moot. The bandit staggered backwards, yanked off his feet and swung around by a grip on the back of his neck. The knife he’d held was out of his hand and slicing down the center of his face before he registered its removal. Cloud had barely seen Diablo’s approach out of the shadows, but part of that sluggishness on his part he preferred to blame on drugs and blood loss.   
“Did I say he was mine?” Diablo yelled at the room at large. “Did I say any but me could lay hands to him?” He shook the man in his grip for emphasis, but there was nothing left to acknowledge Diablo’s claim, the power of Diablo’s slash with the knife having cleanly cleaved the man’s head down the middle.   
Diablo threw the knife aside, face livid, and grasped the bloody edges of the man’s face, pulling the halves apart with a audible cracking of bone. Blood still pumped and pulsed, the brain dead but the heart getting in those last few beats before it quit.   
“Are there worms in your skull, Tyree?” he asked, digging his fingers into the mangled mass of brain. The pack stared with horrified fascination, the weaker backing away in the face of his madness, the worst of them grinning in anticipation of what would happen next.   
Diablo let the man drop to the floor at his feet. There was a dull splat as gray matter hit cement. Diablo licked the gore off one finger, then turned to Cloud with mad, wild eyes and raked the nails of one hand down the side of his own stubbled cheek, scoring four bloody gouges.  
“He didn’t have worms in his head,” he said. “They’re in mine! Crawling inside my skull . . . and all they whisper about is YOU!”  
He reached that bloody hand towards Cloud, little bits of brain and gore still clinging to his fingers and Cloud recoiled as much as a body could in his position. He’d seen bloody things in his life. Miserable, terrible things that still haunted his nightmares, but Diablo was making his stomach curl a little right now, making the remnants of the last thing he’d eaten consider coming back up the hard way. Diablo caught hold of his sweater, stepping close enough so that Cloud could feel the warmth of the man’s breath on his cheek. The man was unarmed and had stripped off his jacket and the pieces of mismatched armor he’d worn and was down to a dirty white wife-beater, black. old-style military trousers and the leather bands around wrists and forearms that the armblades attached to. There was thin chain around his neck from which dangled multiple dogtags. Five or six sets of them at least.   
“I should kill you.” Diablo wound his stained hand in Cloud’s hair, forcing his head back, baring his throat. “Should just slit your throat and be done with it . . .” he pressed his mouth to Cloud’s neck, teeth grazing the skin over the big vein, then he pulled back a little, grimacing, cords of muscle trembling in neck and shoulders as if he fought some internal battle. He brought his other hand up and the fingers bit into the sides of Cloud’s neck, cutting off the flow of blood beneath his jaw. A few seconds and he’d be unconscious and a few seconds after that and he’d be dead.  
Cloud didn’t stop to think, just reacted out of reflex, bringing a knee up sharp and hard and almost scoring a direct hit, but Diablo was too fast and shifted, taking the brunt of the impact upon his thigh. He let go though, with a snarl and a back handed slap that sent Cloud spinning in his bonds. A blow to his side, almost over the wound from Diablo’s armblade and Cloud gasped and saw stars over a red tinged explosion of darkness. It only lasted a precious moment, that black distance from the hurt, then he was back and all the aches with him.   
There were jeers and catcalls from the sidelines, cries of encouragement to keep going, to feed their bloodlust.   
“The hole! Put him in the hole!” some of them cried and Diablo cocked his head, a slow grin spreading across his thin lips. He nodded and lifted a hand.  
“They want entertainment. You need a lesson in humility. Lets see how long you can last before you can’t fight anymore, boy.”

 

The grate on the floor covered what might have been once a vehicle maintenance bay. The bay beneath it, once the big lift had been lowered was maybe 18’ x 24’ and some 12’ deep. It was pitch as black down there, and the smell of rust and dried blood was overpowering.   
They triggered the sputtering, mechanism that rolled the grate back into the floor, uncovering the bay. Cloud had not made it easy on them, getting him down into that dark unknown. He’d fought it tooth and nail, as best a man could with wrists manacled together and too many enemies to count ready to swarm in and overwhelm him. They manhandled him to the edge of the bay and shoved him over, and he took one of them with him, twisting so that unfortunate ended up on the bottom when they hit ground. Then he scrambled to his feet, ready to make a leap for the edge that he knew he could make, even chained as he was and came up short against a wall of living, leering human flesh looking down at him from around the rim, all of them sporting weapons of one sort or another. So he stood there, breath coming fast and harsh, scanning the lot of them narrowly as the grate slid back into place, sealing him in. The man he had dragged in with him, cursed and called up to his fellows for succor, but no one heeded his pleas.   
A key hit the floor by Cloud’s feet and he looked up to find Diablo standing on the grate overhead, grinning down.   
“If you last the day, I’ll give you water.”  
Cloud stared up silently, not moving for the key.   
Diablo crouched down, elbows on knees, head canted in amusement. It was chilling how fast the utter madness left his eyes to make him seem nothing more than a normal murderer.   
“I wouldn’t waste time, if I were you.”  
Something grated behind him. The man in the bay with him whimpered, pulling out a belt knife. There was a door. A thick metal thing that had been wielded shut along the top, but the bottom half had been cut through forming a tunnel that led to sheer blackness. Cloud crouched, eyes on that darkness and captured the key. He fit it into the lock of one manacle and the cuff clicked off. The leather of his glove had protected his skin somewhat, but the wrist still felt bruised to the bone.   
Something blurred out of the tunnel, a scuttling of multiple legs and hard shell across metal. Cloud leapt back, only one hand free of metal cuffing, and the thing shot under him like an arrow towards the other man.  
The wastelander barely got an arm up in time to shield his face as the beast fell upon him, rearing up on its lower legs and ripping into tender human flesh with a half dozen claw tipped legs and a maw full of poison filled teeth that protruded from within the protection of a multi-hinged inner carapace.  
It was a desert viperpede, deadly poisonous and lightening fast. One of many vicious beasts that dwelled within the western drylands. They were not solitary creatures.   
Cloud swung the dangling end of the manacles into the face of the second viperpede that scuttled out of the tunnel, and kicked out against the side of its hard shell as it swerved from the impact. It rolled, multiple feet kicking. If he’d had a sword, any sword, he could have dealt with it easily enough with its underbelly vulnerable, without one, he hesitated, not eager to taste its venom, not willing to get close enough to get scratched by a stray fang and risk succumbing to a poison that might not kill a man with a boosted Solider immune system, but would certainly slow him down enough to fall prey to the viperpede’s other attacks.   
A third one scurried out from the tunnel and Cloud swore, dodging its charge, bouncing off the back wall and coming down feet first upon the second beast which had rolled over onto its feet again. There was a cracking of shell, a shrill chittering which brought the other two running. He jumped over them, landing in a crouch by the mangled body of the wastelander. He found the knife a few feet away and swept it up, but had no time to check for other weapons as the two healthy beasts came at him, the damaged one limping behind.   
The knife didn’t give him the reach he wanted. There was nothing to do but rely on speed and dexterity. He rotated the wrist with the manacle still dangling from it, and waited for them to come.

 

The desert around the base of Gold Saucer was flat enough and featureless enough to land a small plane. And after circling the mammoth structure a few times, ignoring the distracted, panicked voice over the radio that he was in a no-fly zone, Cid put the Little Bronco down. Some of the damage was visible from the outside. The sort of large-scale deconstruction that could only be attributed to high explosives or suped-up, material laced weapons.  
Cid had snatched a cell phone out the hand of an overweight man in a multi-hued disaster of a beach shirt, his own being still on Sierra, and called Cloud. Vincent, who never made calls as far as Cid knew, was the only one of them that knew the number from memory. Go figure.  
It rang and rang and rang until finally it picked up and a voice that wasn’t Cloud’s issued a curious ‘hello’. At which point Cid’s telephone manners had dissolved and there was a ‘who the hell . . . ?’ and ‘where the fuck . . . ?’ involved before he got informed that Cloud couldn’t come to the phone by a voice that didn’t sound at all comforting.   
It was then they’d decided that they needed to get a little closer look at Gold Saucer and not via the usual slow means.   
So here they were, walking across sun baked earth towards the outer perimeter of the dismal, shanty-town of a prison that clustered around the massive foot of the amusement park in the sky. It was a prison that didn’t need to employ guards or barbed-wire fences, the endless stretch of desert proving ample enough discouragement for prisoners to leave. Walking out into the desert was a sure death sentence.  
Today, however there were a multitude of security. Men in Gold Saucer uniforms, even a few scattered ShinRa blues were making a show of force on prison grounds. The rent in the Saucer support tower was visible from the edge of the prison grounds.  
“Halt! You can’t enter here.” A few of the Saucer security rushed up to them, awkwardly holding rifles that were not usually part of their daily equipment. You could just see these kids were not comfortable in the position of armed guards. Hell, they probably worked the kiddie section of Wonder Square on those days that the park wasn’t getting it’s gold-plated ass kicked.   
“Ha. Bet that’s not a line heard ‘round here too often.” Cid pulled out a smoke, and Vincent pulled out a high caliber death-dealer which no one in their right mind could doubt he was entirely comfortable with.  
“I don’t think he likes you pointing those at him,” Cid remarked, taking a drag.   
They gawked at the muzzle of Vincent’s gun.   
“You know, I seen that gun put a hole through a twenty-foot ShinRa Battle Mech, I hate to think what’d do to human flesh and bone. Why don’t you just take your fingers off the triggers, boys, and point those things at the ground and maybe he’ll do the same,” Cid suggested.   
They decided to take him up on his advice and obligingly Vincent lowered his own gun, but they could still see the long barreled thing in his hand peeking out from the folds of his cloak.   
“Good kids.” Cid applauded their flash of intelligence. “Now, what the hell went on here? And don’t give me any crap about it, neither him or me is the mood to get the run around from you uniforms anymore today. They come through that big assed hole in the wall?”  
“Y-yes sir. In and out.” One of the guards gestured back nervously. “Inmates said maybe a dozen of them went inside armed to the teeth. Maybe half that number came out and they had ATV’s waiting for them out here. They even took some of the inmates with them . . . those that were willing to go out into the desert with them blind, that is.”  
“You send out pursuit?”  
The young guard almost laughed. “Into the desert? Its close to a thousand square miles of . . . nothing out there. No sir, we haven’t sent anything.”  
“Which direction?” Cid asked and one of them lifted an arm and pointed due west. He couldn’t have picked a direction that had more desert. Cid shook his head and cursed.   
At which point he started as aimless a search as he’d ever undertaken, flying low over endless amber sand and hard packed desert earth, all of it so windswept that even had the desert ATV’s left tracks, the dust and sand would have devoured them in no time.   
It was hot, miserable flying, with the desert sun biting down so intense that even the wind couldn’t keep a man from overheating. The dust swept up high enough in places that both he and Vincent were coated with it. And after hours of searching, they hadn’t found a damn thing.   
It was close to dusk and he was at the point that if he didn’t turn back now and head for Gold Saucer for a refuel, he wouldn’t make it back at all. Hell, he might not anyways if he had to keep fighting the head winds out here. He lamented the lack of Sierra where a man could fly over treacherous desert in comfort and style. He grumbled dissolutely to himself, turning the Little Bronco on its wing to start one last sweep before it was too dark to see anything and then heading back.  
Something glinted in the distance. He lifted a hand to wipe the film of dust off his goggles and squinted. Yes, damn sure was something shiny reflecting the last rays of the setting sun.   
“Vin,” He shouted over the engines and the roar of wind. He looked over his shoulder to see if Vincent had heard and got a nod in response. He swept by low and still almost missed it.  
If it weren’t for the beat up old pickup he might have flown right past and never noticed the little desert community. His spirits sunk. There were no parked ATV’s no sign that this was more than what it looked. A struggling little outpost of life that against all odds had sprung up in the desert.   
But still, if there were people here and the trickle of smoke issuing from one sandstone dwelling suggested there were, they might be able to offer information that the idiots at Gold Saucer didn’t know.   
He landed on the hard packed, desert ground and taxied right up to the collection of small, dwellings. The huts themselves, and there were only six of them, were made of sandstone, with round tops and sides that made them look like desert igloos. There was a central well that must have been deeper than hell to reach water in this arid place, but water it apparently provided for there were little mesh shaded herb boxes alongside a few of the huts that had greenery actually thriving in them. Also shaded by mesh tarps were an assortment of junk, scavenged auto parts, rusty oil tanks and barrels, crates of mish-mash that could have come from anywhere.   
The people that emerged from the desert igloos were small and brown, their skin leathered and tough looking from a life under the unforgiving sun. They were astonished to see Cid and Vincent exit from the plane, the quartet of children that appeared with the adults scampering over to examine Little Bronco.   
It looked like at least four generations of family here, the great great granddad teetering out last, rheumy eyes almost invisible behind folds of wrinkled skin.   
“How you folks doing?” Cid offered greeting, then waved a hand back towards the plane and added. “Was sort of surprised to see your little settlement way out here in the middle of nowhere.”  
“Nowhere?” the old man croaked. “No one is nowhere. We’re simply in a somewhere so vast that city folks can’t fathom.”  
“Ah . . . yeah, guess so.” Cid glanced at Vincent who had developed a vaguely amused non-expression on the visible portion of his face.   
“You are the first strangers we’ve seen here in many, many years,” the old man said.  
“You sure about that?” Cid asked. “‘Cause we were hoping that somebody here might have seen some activity ‘round abouts recently. Men in ATV’s. Shady looking fellows as likely to cut your throat as look at you?”  
The villagers looked amongst themselves worriedly, and one of the younger men stepped forward. “No one who is not of the desert can travel this deep into her depths, not even the bandits that roam her edges . . . not unless they come from the sky as you did.”  
Great. Just great. What a waste of time. “Well . . . thanks then, for your time. I don’t suppose you have any fuel to sell?”  
“We might have a barrel to spare, for the right amount of gil,” the old grandfather said, a trader’s smile creasing his face. He indicated the covered junk area and the row of much used barrels sitting there.   
Cid began bargaining with the old man who was obviously, despite his advanced age, the final say in any village matter. They settled on a price, which just about emptied Cid’s wallet. But as a result they were invited to share the evening meal and stay the night, which suited Cid fine, since he wouldn’t have to start over from scratch again way back at Gold Saucer. When he went over to inspect the barrel of fuel, Vincent was already there, staring at something half buried under layers of other junk.   
“Look,” he said softly and Cid leaned forward to see what had snagged his attention. It was a big metal plate with an outdated ShinRa military logo along the top, they’d redesigned their tactical forces symbol a couple of times over the years since this one had been in use. Beneath it in faded, peeling paint were the words, ‘Desert Outpost 3’.   
“Hey, what’s this to?” Cid asked one of the young men who was helping wrestle the fuel barrel out from under the tarped area. The young desert dweller looked and shrugged blankly.   
After he’d filled the Little Bronco’s fuel tanks, and everyone had filed inside the biggest of the sandstone igloo’s for dinner he asked the old grandfather about the ShinRa placard. The old man sat sipping at the bitter tea the women served after a dinner of cactus mash and roast desert snake, his attention seemed to wonder, as if he’d forgotten the question altogether, but then his focus snapped back and he said.  
“Almost half my life has passed since the men with their machines and their weapons tried to carve out a place in this desert. Even with their fancy gizmos and machines this land was too great for them to conquer. It drove them out, as it drives out most and they left bits and pieces of themselves behind.”  
“But they built an outpost?”  
“They tried.”  
“And its still here?”  
The old man shrugged. “The desert consumes everything in time. Perhaps it is, perhaps it is not.”  
“Where?” Cid leaned forward.  
“Thirty years ago is a long time. The desert changes and so do its paths and the features of its face. I do not know.”  
“Can you give me a direction? A general distance. Four days walk. Ten. Twenty?”  
The old man thought, scratching a mostly hairless head. “To the southwest of here. Many days walk for a man not used to the passions of the desert.”  
It was a viable clue. Certainly a direction to scour come morning, since they hadn’t any better option in mind.   
They were extraordinarily generous the people of this little familial village, giving over the smallest of the stone igloos for their guests to use. The women giggled shyly and averted their eyes as they ushered Cid into the cool darkness. A cloth curtain covered the doorway and the two small round windows. There was a tiny fire pit carved into the stone at the back of the hut, but it was dark, wood being too precious a commodity here to waste on fire simply for light’s sake.  
“What do you think?” Cid asked Vincent when the women had finally scurried off to their families and their own bed mats.   
“I think there was a time that ShinRa strove for preeminence everywhere.”  
Cid kept waiting for a more pertinent answer and Vincent finally sighed and gave it. “There are few destinations for men who head into the desert. By all accounts these men seemed to have an agenda and perhaps a goal. This ShinRa outpost is as good a place to start as any.”  
“Glad you agree on that.” Cid pulled off his shirt and ran a hand over the sweat stiffened hair on his chest. “What I wouldn’t give for a Goddamned bath.”  
“They left water,” Vincent said and Cid followed his indication to find a basin in the shadows filled with about a gallon of fresh water. There was a folded cloth next to it. He sighed and went over, splashing water on his face and running wet hands through dust stiffened hair.   
“You gotta wonder,” Cid said, as he ran the wet cloth across his chest, , whistling a little in appreciation as water trickled down his belly. “What sort of bad-assed bastards these guys are, to have taken down Cloud. The kid ain’t exactly a pushover.”  
“No,” Vincent agreed, a shadowy, motionless figure staring out one of the small round window.   
“You just gonna stand there, or you wanna share some of this water while its still clean?”  
Vincent canted his head, as if that question took deep consideration, but then he started unbuckling the fasteners to his cloak and hung it from a hook by the door that Cid hadn’t even seen in the near dark. Without the red of the cloak, he might have melted right into the night, black shirt, black pants, black hair. Sometimes a man needed to get his hands on such insubstantial things to make sure they didn’t fade away.   
Cid snagged the fabric of Vincent’s shirt, drawing him a step closer. Close enough to brush his own stubbled cheek against Vincent’s oddly smooth one and take in the clean scent of gun-oil and the bitter tea they’d had with dinner and the hint of the incense they’d burned in the central igloo, but not so much the odor of sweat and effort that a normal human man couldn’t help but exude after a day like today. But then, Vincent hadn’t been normal in a long, long time.   
Thirty years ago ShinRa had had that base. Even back then the Turks had been wrapped up tight with ShinRa military dealings, and Cid had to wonder if Vincent had heard first hand about these desert bases back then, when he’d still been fully human and a member in good standing of the Turks.   
“You remember anything about these bases?” Cid pulled the red bandanna from Vincent’s head, liking the way the unrestrained hair tended to slide over Vincent’s pale face.  
Vincent shrugged, not liking to share those memories of his past. “Yes.”  
“Yes?” Cid started working at the buttons at the high neck of Vincent’s shirt and Vincent stood there, looking past him, and let him. “You never mentioned . . .”  
“It was a long time ago. It never occurred . . . until I saw the placard.”  
“You ever go out there?” Cid reached bare skin. Fine, pale throat and chest. Cid leaned in and pressed his lips against the hollow between Vincent’s collar bones and Vincent shuddered, flesh and blood hand reaching up to rest on Cid’s bare shoulder.   
“No. I just heard . . . rumors.”  
Cid lifted his head, one arm around the small of Vincent’s back, under the shirt and against bare skin. It kept them close when Vincent had that vague look that hinted he might want to get some distance. “What kind of rumors?”  
“Before ShinRa started its human testing, they experimented on beasts . . . if the Jenova element drove the majority of its human subjects mad, imagine what it did to the animals.”  
“Yeah, I think I’ve come across my share of suped-up nasties to figure that one out.”  
“They needed out of the way places to store the successes . . . and the failures. It wasn’t so much the desert that drove them out, as the inability to control their charges.”  
“Great. That explains why this place has more than its fair share of particularly nasty beasties.” He got Vincent’s shirt the rest of the way unbuttoned and ran his flattened palm up his tummy and across his chest, pausing to graze his thumb across the baby soft flesh of one flat nipple.   
“You wanna take this off?” His other hand touched the leather, buckles and hardware at Vincent’s waist. One thing you didn’t do was touch Vincent’s guns and Cid could respect a man’s peculiarities with his weapons.   
Vincent assented, reaching down to unbuckle the strap at his thigh, then the big buckle at his waist, then he draped the gun belt, gun and all on the table next to the basin. Then it was safe to get to his pants, to feel the outline of half hard cock beneath the thick material of his fly, to squeeze hard enough to make Vincent gasp and press himself up into Cid’s grasp.   
Cid grinned, thoughts of altered ShinRa beasts getting shuffled aside in favor of more basic needs.   
They went about it in the no-nonsense way required in a strange place with strangers in the next hut and no idea how much time for real privacy they might have. They got Vincent’s pants mostly off and Cid’s around his knees, which was as much undressing as they tolerated before staggering onto the sleeping mats and collapsing in a tangle of limbs. He got Vincent onto his elbows and knees and mounted from behind, one hand tangled in Vincent’s long hair, the other firm about his waist, fingers forming a fist around his cock. That was the only part of Vincent that was really hot, the rest of his skin as cool to the touch as if they were fucking in an air conditioned room instead of a hut in the middle of the desert - - well, his cock and the tight grasp of his insides surrounding Cid’s own desperately thrusting flesh. Which only went to show you that thinking during sex was a bad idea, because dwelling on the temperature of Vincent’s body pushed him over the edge and into climax and he spurted like a kid on his first backseat adventure.   
Damned embarrassing thing to happen to a man, but he made the best of it, giving Vincent a two handed finish and pulling them both over onto their sides on the mats afterwards.   
“Sitting on my ass all day in the plane, y’know, put me off my game.”  
“Umm.” Vincent lay there in his arms, not seeming to mind and Cid pressed his face into his hair, inhaling the scent of him, content to be here at the moment, even if it was under shitty circumstances.   
“Cid?”   
“Humm?”   
“I can search better from the ground.”  
Cid lay there, sated and weary, curled around Vincent’s body with the prospect of sleep close on the horizon. It took a moment for Vincent’s words to sink in. Even then he took a moment to mull them over, his first conclusion to such a statement being - - well ridiculous - - and looking for the more reasonable meaning.  
“Yeah, and I could search better from the sky if I had Sierra. So?”  
He felt Vincent sigh. “I want to leave while its still dark. You go on tomorrow.”  
“Wha - - have you lost your fucking mind?” Cid pushed himself up, glaring down.   
“Not recently,” Vincent said quietly, sitting up, canting his head to peer up at Cid through disarrayed hair. “The outposts would never have been easily visible to start with - - with years of neglect the desert will have camouflaged it even more.”  
“The operative word there is Desert! You can’t just wander out there on foot.”  
“I can,” Vincent said simply and reached for his pants.   
“Well, fuck if I’m gonna sit here and let you commit suicide, damn idiot!”  
“I’ll find you if I need you.”   
“The hell!! How?”  
Vincent gave him a look that said very plainly, ‘how do I ever find you?’ Cid cursed some more. He pulled up his pants and looked for the one boot he’d lost somewhere along the way to the sleeping mat. Found it in the shadows near the mat and bent over to pull it on. When he straightened up, there was nothing but himself and the shadows in the hut. The curtain over the door rippled gently.   
“Son of a bitch,” he muttered, stomping outside. The round huts were quiet, dark shapes in the night, Little Bronco a familiar silhouette beyond them, and beyond her, nothing but black desert night. Not a sound, not a movement, not a trace of the ghost that had melted into the dark. 

 

Cloud crouched, back to a corner and let his make-shift sword touch ground for the precious moments of peace he had while the current beast paused to devour the flesh of one of an abnormally large sandsnake that had only recently had its head hacked off by the four foot piece of jagged metal frame that Cloud had liberated from the doorway. A crude weapon at best, but it gave him a reach the knife didn’t, and with enough power behind it, it served well enough against beasts.   
After wielding it for . . . God, the hours melded together into one long, bloody nightmare . . . his arm was considerably past the shaking phase. Granted the make-shift sword was no less heavy as the one he would have preferred to have, but there was only so long a body could go full-out and not fall prey to exhaustion. The wound on his favored sword wielding side didn’t help. Nor did the stinging of the wounds on his hand, where jagged metal had cut through the thick material of his glove to score his hand. Blood tended to make his grip treacherous.   
Carcasses littered the floor, bodies and blood and spilled squishy inside parts made footing a chancy thing in the near darkness. Having the venomous fang of a dead creature rip into his leg would be no less disastrous than a live one.   
Cloud shifted the make-shift sword, stretching his fingers to work the cramps out. The thing gorging itself on snake belly looked up, pale eyes finding him in the shadows, bloody maw pulling back in a snarl. At first glance the thing had looked normal, like so many of the beasts he had killed in this bloody pit had seemed when they’d come through that tunnel at him. This one might have been descended from the lean desert wolves that prowled the drylands, but it was larger and broader of chest and fur only sprouted from its body in places, the rest of its muscular body covered in what seemed hard plates of armor-like shell. He’d never seen its like.   
The desert wolf took a stiff legged step towards him, head held low, a hissing snarl issuing from its throat. Cloud shut his eyes for a fraction of a heartbeat, gathering strength that had began to fail him hours ago, and pushed himself to his feet, using the wall for support. God, but his legs were rubbery, muscles beginning to tremble in exhaustion.   
How many beasts had he killed? How many hours doing it? Ten? Twelve? The faces above were nothing but a blur, their catcalls and slurs had become meaningless background noise. There were much fewer of them now than there had been hours ago. Even the watchers had gotten tired and left to take their ease while he had no choice but fight for his life. Save sitting down and succumbing to the inevitable.   
It came at him, a sudden charge and he swung the ragged iron strip like a bat, but his speed was diminished and this beast was fresh and dodged, getting inside his defenses. He let go the make-shift sword and brought the knife up as the thing hit him, paws against his chest. He let himself fall backwards, using his free arm to keep it off his throat. Teeth bit into his arm, even as he sliced at the thing’s belly, looking for a soft spot in the shell plating.   
The blade kept sliding off hard shell and he hadn’t the leverage to get the strength behind a blow that would simply piece the armor. Panic and the pain in his arm gave him stamina. He kicked out, dislodging the beast from his body, but not its grip on his forearm. He twisted and teeth tore through the leather forearm protector and ripped into the meat beneath. He cried out, as much from desperation as pain at the thought of his sword arm crippled, and drove the knife up under the jaw attached to his arm. There was no armor plating there, just tufts of fur and the blade sliced up under the soft part of the jaw and into the beast’s brain. It dropped, pulling him to the floor with it. He pried the jaws loose from his arm and backed away, eyes on the dark tunnel which would expel something else out for his blood in short order. He held his arm close to his chest, hand over the wound. It was bleeding badly, but his arm seemed to have full function, which meant no tendons or muscles had been ripped. He dragged his jagged iron sword to him and crouched again, shuddering.   
Nothing came. The blood continued to flow. They’d taken everything out of his pockets, his shoulder guard, and his sheath before he’d even regained consciousness, so he had nothing to stem the flow of blood. He used the knife to cut a strip off the hem of his trousers while he had the chance and tied it tight around the wound. He crouched there afterwards, rocking a little to keep his mind from blanking out, anything to keep the lightheadedness at bay. But there was a point where a body began to succumb to blood loss and exhaustion and he’d passed those some time past. The next thing through that tunnel or the one after that would have him. He felt it.   
Metal grated upon metal and he started, reached for the iron strip, waiting for something to emerge from the tunnel for a few moments before he realized that the noise wasn’t coming from the tunnel but from the grate above. He blinked up, vision wavering no small bit, at the renewed number of faces staring down. At the flickering points of torches that made their faces into orange lit monstrosities.   
With effort, he pushed himself to his feet and every ache, every strained muscle made itself known. A figure jumped down, landing with predatory grace. Diablo, weaponless and exuding smug confidence.   
Cloud clenched his teeth, snarling at the audacity of the bastard. At the jeering, blurred faces above that cried encouragement and found entertainment in this carnage.   
Well fuck them all. And fuck Diablo if he thought he had an easy victory coming.   
Cloud looked down, letting an overlong fall of bangs hide his eyes. Then he moved, not towards Diablo, but the wall to his right, flinging the long piece of ragged metal as he did. It arced up, slicing through the wall of flesh and blood at the top of the pit wall. Men screamed and Diablo looked that way, and then Cloud was on him, launched off the wall and scoring a deep slice with the dagger, just missing the side of his neck and cutting into the man’s jaw from ear to chin. Unfortunate that his aim was high, but he was off his game.   
Diablo wasn’t off his for more than the second his attention had been drawn to the damage Cloud had caused his men at the edge of the bay. He roared in outrage, fist catching Cloud in the shoulder as he passed, a powerful enough blow to send him to one knee, shaky as he was.   
Cloud rolled before he could land another strike, and came up against the unexpected obstacle of a dead viperpede. He’d just missed the poisonous fangs. He scrambled away, but not fast enough to avoid Diablo’s lunge at him, or Diablo’s weight slamming into him. They both went sliding in the gore that coated the floor and Cloud’s back hit the wall near the dark tunnel mouth. Cloud brought the knife up, trying to gut the man on top of him before his strength gave out under Diablo’s assault. He got a knee in the groin and fist in the temple that made his vision tilt. It didn’t stop him from biting back with the knife and scoring a slice across Diablo’s palm.   
Diablo snarled his face bloody and twisted, lips pulled back in an animalistic snarl, eyes . . . god, his eyes were not his own, glowing green with mako fueled madness that Cloud only had the briefest glance at before the man slammed his forehead into Cloud’s, filling his head with a shower of lights.   
When he fought them away, the knife wasn’t in his hand anymore, but against his throat, clenched in Diablo’s knotted fist. Diablo’s whole body seemed to tremble. In madness, in emotion, in some sort of internal battle that Cloud was not privy to. He shook his head like a dog with an ear infection and when he stopped and finally brought his face close to Cloud’s, a certain calmness had come over him.   
The knife bit into Cloud’s neck and he took a shallow breath, letting his body go lax under Diablo, surrendering with the notion that if he survived this somehow, he’d live to fight another day.   
“That’s right,” Diablo breathed against his cheek. “That’s how I like you, Cloud. Submissive. Like you used to be, before we both lost our minds. You will be again. Begging for mercy. Working for it, before the end . . .”*  
Cloud blinked, a vague, eerie deja vous whispering across his memory.   
And then it clicked. He had heard those words, whispered to him in a nightmare by another man that had held a blade to his throat. A nightmare he’d woken from with a fresh paper thin score on his neck that with time and rational he had convinced himself he’d done to himself in the throes of nightmare.   
“Sephiroth,” he said softly.  
Diablo’s eyes widened, his head jerking the pale blue overtaking the green that had glowed in his eyes.   
“Sephiroth?” he roared and jerked Cloud forward only to slam him back against the wall with bone jarring impact. “Sephiroth!! That arrogant bastard! That fucking, brown-nosing piece of shit. Don’t talk to me about Sephiroth.”  
The madness was back in full force, this time driven by a frothing tide of violence that Cloud hadn’t the strength to fight.


	5. Chapter 5

Barret hadn’t been pleased, letting her go off by herself with Reno and Rude. It was only fear for the kids being left alone and no knowing if the wastelanders would be back that kept him on the street in sector 7 when Tifa drove away with the two Turks.  
She was dressed at any rate, having ignored fire fighter warning to venture back into the building before they okayed it. Reno made disappointed sounds, but she ignored him, tired of the game and maybe Rude was too, because one big shoulder glanced Reno as he was getting into the back seat of the car with her in mid-complaint about her change of attire, and he fell into the seat more awkwardly than he might have.  
Rude of course, radiated complete innocence of any pre-meditated clumsiness as he got behind the wheel to drive them uptown.  
Uptown was Sector 1. There had been a lot more rebuilding and revitalization here where there was private money to back it, than in the rest of Midgar. It was hard to tell, driving through the wealthiest part of town that Meteor had ever ripped through the city. They’d built out instead of up, not even bothering with the reconstruction of the plates. The new Sector 1 sprawled to the walls of Midgar and without. New walls had been erected, to encompass the spread. The buildings were graffiti free. The roads were wide and clean, the sidewalks and alleyways lacking the ever-present homeless and lurking gangbangers that were an everyday commodity in the poorer sectors.  
ShinRa didn’t have a new official building yet that she knew of. At least not in Midgar. The company was keeping a low profile these days, working behind the scenes in its efforts to rebuild.  
They pulled into the underground parking area of an apartment building and into a reserved space near a bank of elevators. Rude opened the door for her and she stepped out warily.  
“Don’t look so worried,” Reno assured her, sounding amused, ushering her to the elevator. Rude inserted a key that allowed access to the top floor buttons. He pushed the penthouse and the elevator rose, the doors opening not upon a hallway lined with doors, but directly into a very large, very tastefully decorated great room. A bank of windows looked out over the city. A collection comfortable leather furniture was arranged before a big, wall entertainment system.  
Reno headed for the mini-bar and Rude held out a hand indicating she proceed the other way. There was a glass topped desk with a laptop computer open upon it, along with a neat stack of papers and folders. A cup of coffee, black and half empty sat on a coaster. The leather chair was empty.  
“We’re back, boss.” Reno called, padding around the bar with a tumbler of amber liquid.  
“I see.” A man limped through the arched open doorway behind the desk. Rufus Shinra, who’d been confined to a wheelchair up to six months ago, due to the twin impacts of injuries inflicted during the destruction of the old ShinRa headquarters and the contraction of geostigma. The geostigma had been washed away by that miraculous lifestream induced rain half a year ago, curing rich and poor alike. He walked with a cane now.  
He was of medium height, pale silver blonde hair, thin, but not so thin that he didn’t wear his expensive suit well. He’d ordered her execution once.  
Tifa lifted her chin and waited for him to say whatever it was he’d brought her here to say.  
“Miss Lockheart. It’s been a long time.”  
Not long enough, she wanted to say, but held her tongue, inclining her head in forced politeness instead. She was aware of Reno and Rude settling themselves behind her, Reno on the couch, Rude taking up a place by the potted plant at the elevator door.  
Rufus sat down behind the desk, leaning the silver headed cane by the chair arm. He opened the folder and pulled out a picture. Slid it across the desk top towards her and waited while she decided whether to step up and take a look at it.  
There was no helping it. Not if she wished to get out of here and back to the bar as quickly as possible. She moved forward, pulling the photograph towards her with her fingertips, turning it around so that the man in the picture faced her right side up. It looked like a security camera shot of a lean faced, dark haired man in the midst of a crowd of casually dressed people. She had a vague recognition of the face. It was not an easy one to forget, even though she’d only seen the man in passing and he hadn’t been one of the vocal one’s that had caused trouble in 7th Heaven that night that Annie had been killed in retribution for Cloud pissing them off.  
“I’ve seen him.” She said warily. It was no coincidence that she was being shown this man’s picture after friends of his attacked her in her own bedroom.  
“He wasn’t there this morning.” She pushed the picture back towards him.  
“I know.” He let it lay, more interested in watching her.  
“Then what do you want?”  
Rufus steepled his fingers, considering. “This man was a Soldier and though I am relatively certain he never had any association with Cloud Strife either in or out of the service . . . well, I’m interested in discovering if he mentioned any contact or memory of this man to you after the incident last month with the dead prostitute?”  
She opened her mouth, then shut it, frustration and concern starting to make her skin crawl. If Rufus Shinra knew even a fraction about Cloud, he’d know that Cloud didn’t just mention pertinent facts about his past. Cloud didn’t mention current problems unless he was cornered and coerced into doing so, so how was she supposed to know if he were in trouble or if he was worried about even the little things? Frustrating, infuriating man!  
“No,” she said softly. “He never mentioned anything to me. Were those men at my bar this morning after him?”  
“Doubtful,” Rufus said and glanced down at the stack of other photos in the folder. She followed his gaze and drew a breath. Under another shot of the lean faced man, she saw the sliver of a familiar figure. She leaned forward and snatched it out of the pile. Rufus didn’t move to stop her.  
It was indeed Cloud, in the midst of trading blows with the same man in the other pictures. She recognized the setting now, one of the Gold Saucer amusement squares. Where Cloud was supposed to be right now.  
“What’s going on?” she demanded, slamming the picture down upon the desk. “Is Cloud okay?”  
“I honestly wouldn’t know,” Rufus shrugged. “But, if you’re sure he never mentioned knowing this man to you, then there’s no further need to keep you from dealing with the mess back at your bar. I’ll have someone take you back.”  
“The hell you will!” she cried. “You tell me what’s going on.”  
He seemed to think it over, then shrugged and admitted. “I’ve only conjecture to go on. That and reasonable assumption based on past events. I always understood science better than mysticism and this falls so much more in that category. Let me start from the beginning. When we first started our experiments with the Jenova element, our scientists were working blind so to speak. The success with Sephiroth was a landfall that spawned a flurry of . . . shall we say, unwise . . . experiments. There was quite a bit of . . . raw material . . . to go around in those early days and some of our researchers were liberal in its usage. Diablo was one of those early test subjects, one of the few that didn’t mutate into an abomination.”  
“So he’s a super-Soldier, like Sephiroth was?” she shivered at her own words. Sephiroth was not a topic that prompted feelings of comfort.  
“Not quite like Sephiroth. Sephiroth’s connection to the Jenova . . . intellect . . . was on the most basic level, from before conception, while all the other subjects had the element forcibly melded with their own genetic make up.”  
Like Cloud, she thought, forcibly taken and used as a test subject, turned into something beyond mundane. She tightened her lips and looked out the window for a moment while she gathered her composure.  
“So what are you saying?”  
“Kadaj was a byproduct of one - - maybe two parents- - with enough of the Jenova element in their DNA to pass it on to their offspring. And through that tenuous connection, whatever is left of Sephiroth out there in the lifestream managed to influence him and through him, others with the same . . . stigma.  
“That piece of Jenova that Kadaj was after, the piece he used to liberate Sephiroth from the lifestream . . . it wasn’t much, let me assure you. Hardly enough to perform a decent experiment if I were so inclined to let my researchers have a go at it. Which I’m not. This Diablo, this early test subject that my father indoctrinated into the ranks of Soldier and let loose into the shadows to do his dirty work, he had as much or more of Jenvova’s DNA mixed with his own as Kadaj ever had access to. It only makes me wonder why Sephiroth chose Kadaj as a portal back into this world when there were more fertile pastures.”  
“Because Kadaj was only slightly off his rocker, not crazy as a loon,” Reno suggested from his position on the couch.  
Rufus shrugged, accepting that theory as good as the next.  
“You think Sephiroth . . . you think whatever’s left of him is influencing this man?” She felt sick. That hollow nausea in the pit of her gut that preempted disaster.  
“Why not? You think he surrendered to the lifestream last year when Cloud sent him into it for a second time?”  
“Why go after Cloud?”  
“Why not go after Cloud? What greater threat?”  
“If it were me and he’d kicked my ass twice, he’d be my first target,” Reno commented.  
“Why send people after me . . . and Barret, too?” she knew the answer to her question the moment she asked it. Because they were Cloud’s support system, those of them that had fought side by side with him to put Sephiroth’s insanity to an end.  
Rufus just watched her, a slight, dour smile playing upon his lips.  
“When does it stop?” she asked softly.  
“There’s a point when there’s no one left with enough of the Jenova Element for him to use. Then he’s just one more floating leaf in the stream so to speak, that can only fight so long before he’s sucked down. We went a long ways to making that a reality with the spring in the cathedral.”  
“We? You had nothing to do with it,” Tifa said bitterly.  
Rufus shrugged again, waving a hand. “As you wish. Regardless, the planet, the lifestream itself, provided a means to rid the Jenova element from those with minor taints. Geostigma and then the healing spring. We may have to leave it to more . . . violent means . . . to get rid of the rest.”

 

There were certain instances when unconsciousness was preferable to waking up, especially when consciousness came hand in hand with the awareness of every stabbing ache, every stinging gash and every bone deep bruise.  
Cloud opened his eyes and stared blankly at the loose weave of the dirty blanket his cheek was pressed against. He lay on his side, arms pulled up tight behind him, wrist to elbow with the chain securing them looped once around his throat to discourage too much testing of their security. He rotated his shoulders the minimal amount he could to relieve the ache of cramped muscles, but the effort only seemed to spur more discomfort. He shut his eyes again, gathering stamina, then lifted his lashes again to take in more of his surroundings than the blanket in front of his nose.  
He was in a small cell, with iron walls dulled with dust and patches of rust. There was a battered locker, doors long gone, that boasted nothing inside. No bunk, no window, filled only with the stark belongings of a man that moved from place to place like a nomad.  
Diablo sat in the far corner, attention elsewhere, mouth moving silently as if he held a conversation with himself. Dried blood streaked his jaw and neck, but the slice Cloud had scored had already crusted over. The fact that the man hadn’t bothered to clean the wound was disturbing.  
Cloud watched him for a while, the nervous ticks, the abrupt movements of a man that held deep seated troubles, and remembered what Rude had told him. That Diablo had been unbalanced before ShinRa had ever gotten their claws into him. A man like that, a man used to voices in his head, might not have recognized the whisperings of a real outside source. Not until someone pointed it out to him.  
“He’s inside your head, isn’t he?” Cloud asked softly.  
Diablo’s head jerked up, eyes wild and angry. He rose, fast as a wolf on the hunt, and crossed the small room in two strides to crouch over Cloud. He grasped Cloud’s sweater, pulling him up off the floor and there was nothing to do but go limp and let it happen, anticipating pain at the hands of Diablo’s irrational rage.  
“What do you know of it?” He shook Cloud hard enough to rattle teeth, then slammed him onto his back on the floor, driving chains into bound arms.  
“Because he was in mine,” Cloud gasped. Because he knew what it was like to have that irresistible will forcing his hand and he’d gone a little mad from it himself.  
Diablo’s hands loosened on his collar, eyes gone narrow and speculative. He leaned down, close to Cloud’s throat and inhaled. Idly, he pulled the zipper on Cloud’s sweater down, pushed the edges of it aside like a surgeon preparing for business and ran one hand up the center of Cloud’s stomach. “I bet that’s not all he was in, eh? Bad as I want you . . .” he pressed his mouth to the protruding bulge of collar bone and bit down. “No. No, you’re not MY type. I like a little pussy with my ass. He wants you. HE WANTS YOU!!” He pushed himself up and off, striding three paces to the wall, then spinning and stalking back. “That motherfucker. That sneakin’ bastard putting worms in my head. The dead inside my head.” He laughed at that, scraping fingers through his short hair.  
Cloud watched him warily. There was no predicting how to deal with a madman. Even if he’d possessed the talent for negotiation, there was no safe path to reason that wouldn’t backfire with a man like Diablo, pulled in so many directions that he’d become aimless. No. Not aimless, drawn to a path not his own and fighting it. Fighting Sephiroth’s influence and sometimes winning out and sometimes not. Not weak minded at all, this madman, simply deranged.  
“You killed him, didn’t you?” Diablo stopped his pacing to stare down.  
“Twice,” Cloud admitted warily. “I can do three, if push comes to shove.”  
Diablo canted his head, considering. Then he laughed, cackling so hard tears formed in the corners of his eyes. Finally he sank down to his knees next to Cloud, close enough that his thigh pressed against his side. Diablo placed fingertips on his skin, touching the sensitive area around the wound he’d made in Gold Saucer. Cloud drew in breath, muscles quivering as the man put pressure on the barely closed injury. But then his interest moved on, finding the next purpling bruise or crusting gash.  
Forced to lie there and endure it was appalling. Passivity had never been a trait he’d found reason to practice. Submission was a foreign concept.  
“I wonder,” Diablo mused, “if I fuck you, he’ll leave me alone?”  
“No,” he whispered. “You’ll just open the door for him.” What choice but admit that he was scared, that he didn’t want this man’s hands on him, that he doubly didn’t want this man’s attention when his eyes glowed green with the light of mako energy and Sephiroth’s influences. Not when he wasn’t in a position to fight back.  
He was scared and Diablo inhaled the scent of it and grinned.  
“You knew him, didn’t you?” Anything to ward off the predator, to wrest Diablo’s mind away from the insidious sway of a worse madman. “In Soldier?”  
“I knew him.” Diablo’s grin turned bitter, and something more human and more sane crossed his face. “They treated him like a fucking prince, while the rest of us . . . the rest of us . . .” He fingered the dangling array of dogtags around his neck like they were talismans. The muscles in his face spasmed, things going on behind his eyes that maybe Cloud didn’t want to know. Memories that couldn’t have been pleasant, if they involved ShinRa experimentation.  
“They were good men,” he said, more to the air at lodge than Cloud. “All of ‘em were damned good men. Betrayed. Hunted down like dogs . . . Goddamned ShinRa!”  
He slammed a fist into the floor by Cloud’s head and the echoes vibrated outward from the impact. He had something in common with Sephiroth after all, a hatred of the megalithic cooperate monster that had played god with all of them.  
He latched onto Cloud’s jaw, fingers biting into flesh and bone, leaned down close with a growl issuing from his throat and no words to express the feeling behind it. He forced Cloud’s head back, with a rigid forefinger under the tip of his chin and Cloud had to arch his back to keep the chain from cutting off his air, had to fight against the strain that threatened to snap his neck. Diablo threw a leg over his hips, straddling him, vise-like grip still on his jaw. The nails of his other hand scraped across Cloud’s chest, raising welts at the very least, maybe drawing blood.  
“You trying to play me, boy?” Diablo leaned down, following the trail of welts with his tongue. “Tryin’ to get into my head. One too many already.” He laughed at that, resting his forehead on Cloud’s shoulder, while his body shook, fingers straining so hard on Cloud’s jaw that bone threatened to crack.  
He spread his palm out flat above Cloud’s thudding heart, left it there for a moment, taking in the rapid tempo, then pushed himself up, loosening his hold on Cloud’s jaw.  
“I like that you’re afraid. You don’t stink of it, like some, but you can’t hide it from me.”  
“I’m not afraid of you,” Cloud snarled, more for his own benefit than Diablo’s.  
“Maybe not when you had a weapon in hand, but you’re scared now. Your body betrays you and I know the feel . . . I know the scent of your fear. Remember the taste like . . . fine wine.”  
“You don’t remember,” Cloud reminded him, desperate now, because part of Diablo seemed to be fraying at the edges, something calmer and colder seeping in to mend the torn edges.  
“I remember. Do you think she’s dead by now? Your little friend, Lockheart? And that buffoon with the gunarm? Men were sent to see to it, you know? The pilot as well.”  
“Son of a BITCH!!” Spurred by a fury-fueled surge of adrenaline Cloud arched his body, trying to rid himself of Diablo’s unwanted weight. It didn’t matter that the chain bit into his throat, it didn’t matter that his shoulders felt as if they were about to dislocate in his struggle, he needed the bastard off!  
And failed. Too badly disadvantaged in his present position, chained and debilitated, to win out over a man who hadn’t been systematically beaten down over the course of a day - - two days? - - he wasn’t sure. Diablo let him work himself into exhaustion, half conscious from the chain about his neck, then he leaned down and whispered against his ear. “The others are harder to find, but I will, eventually. I’ll take them all from you. Your allies. The tools this world used to disrupt my . . . his . . . my . . . purpose.”  
All the ice blue was gone and only green was left surrounding the pin point pupils of Diablo’s eyes. Cloud squeezed his own lids closed to shut it out. To shut out the nightmare visions of the only things he cared about in the world dead and mangled and bloody. But they came anyway, having played out in his dreams so many times in the past.  
Cloud clenched his jaw, slitting his eyes open to glare up into the oddly composed countenance above him. Maybe not so odd at all, if Sephiroth was mixed in with his consciousness now. Even at the heights of his madness Sephiroth never raged. He had always been calm and cold as ice in his atrocities.  
“Get off me,” he said, voice hoarse from self-inflicted strangulation.  
“All right.” Diablo rose to a crouch, and flung Cloud away from him, spinning to follow like a predator playing with crippled prey. Cloud hit the wall next to the battered locker and it went over with a crash. His left shoulder took the brunt of the impact, forced out of joint by the blow and he ground his teeth to keep from screaming out at the bone deep pain.  
That discomfort took back seat to the greater threat of Diablo pouncing on him, grasping his ankle and jerking him away from the support of the wall. His head hit the floor with a thump and his shoulder burned agony, displaced ball grating against socket. Diablo’s fingers tore at his trousers, nails raking into the flesh at his hips as he yanked them down.  
Fine. Let him do what he wanted. It would be no less pain than that radiating up from his shoulder, no less than being beaten senseless by the bastard when he couldn’t raise an arm to defend himself. And if it was Sephiroth’s desires driving the actions of a madman . . . well, it wasn’t like he hadn’t caved under Sephiroth’s desires in the past as well.  
Cold, metal floor on his skin, body jerked over and face pressed against the floor, a hard knee jamming between his legs, wedging his thighs apart . . .  
It wasn’t like a sixteen year old’s hero worship hadn’t had him basking in the attention, no more thinking of the consequences, of who he might hurt, of the guilts he would feel about the betrayal of someone who truly did care about him, until it was too late and the deed was done. All that had mattered was that the great, the ingenious General of ShinRa’s military forces had expressed an interest in him, a nobody, a grunt of the lowest rank, and he’d no more been able to refuse than he could stop the beating of his heart. It had only dawned on him later, that it hadn’t really been him Sephiroth had held the interest in, not then at any rate, but Zack, who’d been Sephiroth’s friend and confidant and sometimes rival. And Cloud had been Zack’s. Simple as that.  
Intrusion, sharp and quick, a minor little tearing burn compared to the other hurts, but it held impact in other ways, that shook him to the core. Made him grind his teeth and squeeze his eyes shut, enduring the thrusts less stoically that he’d endured the beatings . . .  
Whether Zack had ever known, Cloud didn’t know. Sephiroth hadn’t bragged of it, he’d never been that crass, never needed more than the knowledge. He hadn’t ever been cruel back then. Hadn’t ever been anything but driven, and efficient and loyal to the cause. But Cloud knew and it had eaten him up until the day he simply forgot, memories scraped away by ShinRa atrocities. He hadn’t thought about it in a very, very long time. That betrayal of Zack’s trust, way back when.  
Fingers bit into his skin, nails tearing flesh. New blood mingled with old, dried stains. The chain that bound his arms and looped about his throat was grasped, pulled tight and air intake bled to a stop. Red-tinged blackness crowded in at the edges of his vision . . . Something trembled in the air, like the pulsing energy that raised the hair on the back of your arms the moment before lightning struck ground nearby. Like the lifestream surging up to purge itself of something that tainted its purity . . .  
What a fool he’d been.  
Weak, selfish.  
_It wasn’t your fault, idiot. It was never your fault._  
The energy faded, a wave not able to reach its crest and Cloud’s eyes snapped open, but there was nothing but hard metal floor under his cheek and Diablo’s harsh breath from behind him, Diablo’s body, going heavy and lax for a moment over his. He lay there, simply pulling breath in past a bruised throat, waiting for Diablo to either get off or do whatever the hell else he needed to do to satisfy his Sephiroth-driven needs.  
The weight on him shifted, a trembling began, and the soft rumble of laughter. Diablo sprang off him, laughter gone shrill, a madman’s howling defiance of sanity. Cloud rolled onto his good shoulder, drawing in a wary breath as Diablo snatched the armblades from their place among his scant possessions.  
Had he purged the Sephiroth-driven obsession? But his eyes were still green as a pool of raw mako, so perhaps not. The only thing missing was the Sephiroth-calm. There was only frenzy there now. Diablo screamed and slashed an armblade towards the wall with the door and power rippled outwards, tearing through metal like it was soft butter. Cloud flinched, catching the radiating backwash of that massive release, curled his body a little in the reflexive attempt to protect himself from flying shards of metal and falling dust and debris. Diablo didn’t give him a second glance, stalking out instead through his ragged opening. There were query’s from beyond, the echoes of feet pounding on metal flooring as his men ran to see what had happened.  
And then screams and the echoing hiss of a materia-fueled destruction that made the floor quake. He was killing his own men. Slaughtering whatever and whoever was unlucky enough to get in his path.  
Cloud lay there listening to the sounds of it, the gut wrenching sounds of butchery. The tell-tale flashes of materia unleashed. And then it stopped and only the occasional creaking groan of an old bunker that wasn’t up to this sort of abuse pierced the silence.  
And eventually, the soft sounds of movement, the shifting of debris, the scurrying of men who’d had their world rocked, their loyalties betrayed. There was movement outside the ravaged doorway of Diablo’s cell, a furtive figure creeping through the rubble. A small, wiry man peering in to see what was left in Diablo’s wake. The sharp, familiar features of a man that must have had the devil’s own luck to have survived both Cloud and Diablo’s attentions. He still had the curved saber with its weak materia in the hilt, that he’d had that night in 7th Heaven.  
A chunk of ceiling fell near the shattered doorway and Rat-face started, scrambling into the cell, then snarled and postured, needing to boast his bravado in the face of witnessed skittishness. Cloud didn’t bother to try and push himself up, just lay there on his good side and waited for whatever the little man might try.  
“‘Spected to find you gutted and left for dead. Guess he liked the piece of ass he got enough to want to save some for later, eh, bitch?” Rat-face prodded Cloud with the toe of his boot, gaze traveling over his nakedness. “Maybe me and some of the boys will get our own taste, ‘fore we spill your guts. Yeah, maybe we will.”  
“Are there enough of you left alive to make it worth my while?” he asked softly and Rat-face flinched, knuckles tightening on his saber.  
“You got a deathwish,” Rat-face snarled.  
“No. Do you? When he comes back here and starts killing the rest of you? What then? You gonna stop him?”  
“Shut up!” Rat-face cried, his small eyes darting around the room, as if Diablo might emerge from the shadow. “He - - he’s one of us. He won’t.”  
“You think? How many of you did he kill out there?”  
The little man went to his knees next to Cloud, pulling him half up by the loose edges of his sweater. “Bastard! He wasn’t like this ‘fore he started hunting you.”  
Cloud met his frustration levelly and made an offer. “Not my problem. . . . Unless you want it to be.”  
Rat-face let him go, hands shaking. There was blood on his arms, across his leathers. It didn’t look like his own. This was a scared man. A deeply spooked one. “What’re you gonna do?” he asked shakily. “ You been chewed up and spit out.”  
Cloud narrowed his eyes and stared at the little man. Rat face flinched, looking away, little dog backed down by a more dangerous animal. One that he’d no doubt watched off and on throughout the previous afternoon and night take down beast after beast in that bloody killing bay under the grate. He looked back towards the mangled doorway and the bunker beyond it, face white, mouth pinched.  
“Tyree . . . he deserved it. Boss told us not to lay a hand to you . . . an’ . . an’ the boss, he don’t like to be disobeyed. But what he did out there . . . there weren’t no sense to it.”  
“He’s mad,” Cloud said quietly. “Let me go and I’ll deal with it.”  
Rat-face looked away, torn.  
“They’ll need another boss, once he’s gone,” Cloud reminded him and that seemed to tip the scales.  
The little bandit went for the chains, picking the lock when the key turned up missing and stepping back warily when Cloud pushed himself up, letting the heavy links slid off. His arm was dead weight, the shoulder a grating agony that needed tending before anything else. He pushed himself up and steeled himself for the misery of jamming it back into place. He slammed it once, hard, against the wall and bone popped back into the position it ought to be in. It hurt like hell and he leaned there a moment, arm limp at his side while the lights faded from his vision. It was like someone had flipped a switch, the pain melting away fast and leaving a damned sore shoulder that would be weak for a while until muscles and tendons mended. A day or two and it would be back to full strength. If he had that long. At the very least, it wasn’t his favored arm.  
He pulled on pants and boots, while Rat-face stood there with his saber out, trying to decide how bad of a mistake he’d made. Cloud walked up to him, close enough to take a hit from the saber if he chose to stand there and let it happen and the little man started to say something obnoxious that Cloud wasn’t in the mood to hear. He cut him off with a hand on his throat and pushed him back against the wall, relieving him of the sword in the same motion.  
“Where’s the rest of my stuff?”  
Rat-face lifted an arm, gesturing down the narrow hall. Cloud propelled him ahead of him out the mangled doorway, past bodies that were little more than smears of pulp against twisted metal.  
Diablo hadn’t been hesitant about unleashing destruction on the main bunker bay either. There was sunlight coming in that hadn’t been before, through a tear in the ceiling that ran two thirds the length of the building. Massive support beams had collapsed, crushing bodies. There was no shortage of blood, or scattered bodies and parts of bodies. It reminded Cloud of the killing pit only larger scale. They hardly noticed him, the survivors too busy picking through the wreckage, searching out the living, or scavenging from the dead. Still, even counting the corpses and the pieces of copses Diablo had left in the path of his insanity, there were a lot fewer of them than Cloud recalled.  
“Where are the rest?”  
“What?” Rat-face blinked at him, caught in the act of staring dumbly at the bloodbath. Cloud felt nothing of pity for him. For any of them. They were killers, all. He thought of Annie’s tortured body left behind as a token for him by the likes of these people and figured karma had come around and left its mark.  
“This isn’t all of you. Where are the others?”  
“uh - - took off after the boss. Figured . . . I dunno what they figured.”  
Rat-face led him to a corner only partially sprinkled with debris and he found his shoulder guard and sheath, covered in dust and stained no small bit with blood, most of it dried and probably his own. There were a few things from his pockets, but most of the little stuff was gone, and short of searching the pockets of every thief here, he’d probably never see it again. He took a breath, shutting his eyes for a moment as composure unexpectedly teetered. He pushed the weakness back and looked up at the little bandit.  
“My sword?” he asked.  
Rat-face shrugged. “Not here. I swear.”  
Cloud cursed silently and started towards the big doors.  
“Hey, what’s he doing loose?” somebody cried. Cloud ignored them, until one of them made a go at him, then sidestepped the charge and helped propel the man into the door frame. He stood looking out at desert then. A lot of desert. Heat and sand and slow death out there. He glanced back at the wastelanders, narrowing his eyes in speculation. They hadn’t walked out here, which meant . . .  
He caught Rat-face by the collar as the man was skulking up behind him. “Where are the rides?”

Cid had systematically been scouring the desert for half the day. Grid by grid fly overs that turned up nothing but hard packed, cracked ground, sand covered seas and craggy protrusions of rock thrust up out of a barren earth. It was a damned miserable place and a damned miserable way to spend a day, hot, dust-coated and sunburned. He’d jammed a broad rimmed cap on his head to help protect from a sun a man didn’t feel the true strength of with the wind blowing all the time in his face. He’d brought a couple galleons of drinking water with him from the little desert village, and had gone through over half. How Vincent was coping wherever the hell he was on the ground, was beyond Cid.  
He was still pissed. Most of the curses that passed his lips during the morning had had Vincent’s name attached. He was as much on the lookout for a speck of red down there as sign of an old military installation. Probably a waste of eyesight, since even in the midst of a featureless wasteland, if Vincent didn’t want to be seen, he wouldn’t be seen.  
Noon had come and gone, when Cid finally did catch a glimpse of something that wasn’t dull and dusty. A glint of something reflecting the afternoon sun. He turned the plane on its wing, reducing altitude for a flyby. He squinted, leaning over the side of the cockpit to try and find the source of the reflection.  
His eyes were used to the brightness after a morning of it, but the flare that erupted below was enough to make him jerk back, blinking the white spots out of his vision. He missed all but the tail end of the rippling energy surge that lanced skyward, ripping through the Little Bronco’s right wing.  
He cursed, control becoming a perilous thing. The plane took a distinctly southward dive. He fought it with everything he had, but skill and strength meant nothing when one of your wings had been torn half off. He managed to get the nose up with the help of a damned strong updraft, which kept him from crashing head-on into the hard desert earth.  
The crash was inevitable though. And as the right wing finally gave up the ghost and ripped away from the body of the plane, he could only think of one thing as the ground rushed up.  
Two planes. Two fucking planes damaged in the span of a few days. He didn’t know what he’d done to offend the gods of fate, but his luck had spiraled down to non-existent.  
Well, maybe not completely gone. The impact of the plane hitting ground beat the shit out of him, but it didn’t kill him, which was as big a favor as fate had ever done him, all things considered. He lay there, sprawled in a coc-pit that had ended up 40 degrees clockwise, the nose of the plane buried in the sand, the right side crumpled to hell and back, the left propeller still rotating lazily, up in the air over his head. He had blood in his mouth and a god-awful pain in his right arm. His knee felt like it had been jammed something good up under the coc-pit dash. The rest of him ached like he’d gone ten rounds with a heavy weight, but not so bad that he figured there was damage on the inside. He tried to reach for the harness latch and his forearm howled bloody murder. He hissed, clutching it to his chest, figuring by the feel of it that there bone broken somewhere between wrist and elbow.  
Son of a bitch. He used his left hand to unbuckle the harness, and with a great deal of cursing and pain, managed to pull himself out of the cockpit and down onto the ground. There was sand here instead of sun baked earth, which had probably gone a long way to saving his hide. The Little Bronco was toast though, the right wing God knew where and the rest of her, mangled beyond reasonable repair.  
He leaned against the fuselage and the shade the remnants of the plane offered, arm cradled against his chest, legs sprawled and cussed. Long and inventively.  
Whatever had taken him down, he’d overflown it a good distance. The wasteland wasn’t giving up any movement out there. He shut his eyes and breathed.  
After a while the throbbing of his arm began to tell, and he pushed back his dust smeared goggles to take a look. Gingerly he felt along the line of the arm, dreading the discovery of splintered bone thrusting outwards against flesh and skin. He didn’t feel anything that severe, which he hoped against hope meant that the break was a clean one. He found a piece of broken strut about the length he needed and tore off another dangling piece from the jagged stump of the right wing to make a splint. There was a med-kit in the plane, which he managed to get to without causing himself too much hurt. He used the gauze to fasten the splint into place, and then downed a couple of pain killers for good measure.  
He had half a jug of water left, a few packages of dried rations, the med-kit, and a radio that just blared static at him when he crawled back to the coc-pit to try and raise help. He lay there, half in half out of the coc-pit after that dismal failure, feeling the vague sense of irony that he’d been worried about Vincent, when he was the one that ended up with his life on the line. On the other hand, Vincent being down on the ground, in the general area, might have noticed the blast of energy that had surged up out of nowhere and taken out the plane. Hell, anybody within a ten mile radius ought to have seen it, which begged the debate on whether he should sit here for a while and wait and see if help showed up or try and figure out what direction the little wasteland village was in and attempt the trek back there. With half a jug of water left, either option seemed bleak.  
Something chittered by his boot and he looked down to find the shiny black form of a scorpion sidling up to him curiously. He drew a startled breath and rose, crunching his boot heel down on the thing, then kicking the mashed bug away. He scanned the immediate area for any of its buddies, remembering from his one and only venture out into this damned miserable wasteland before this, that there were quite a few things, larger and harder to deal with than a scorpion prowling about.  
He limped back to the storage hatch near the rear of the fuselage and had to fight to get the dented panel to open one handed. As he was rummaging about for his lance the low, distant humm of a motor caught his attention. He hauled himself and his seven foot lance out and climbed the slight rise in front of the plane’s crumpled nose. He squinted his eyes against the sun, the vastness of the wasteland making the direction from which the sound originated hard to discern.  
There. He saw a faint stirring of dust to the west. As the sound grew louder, he thought he picked up the distinctly different sounds of more than one engine. He leaned the lance against his shoulder and lifted his good hand to shade his eyes. There were more than one. Half a dozen, maybe more, but it was hard to tell exact at the distance they were. He heard the distant pop of what might have been an engine backfiring, then changed his mind on that count when it happened again, rapid fire. Some fool was shooting a gun into the air. Problem was, the same fool and his cronies were headed dead at Cid and the wreck of the Little Bronco.  
Well, shit. Out of the desert fueled fryin’ pan and into the fire. Somedays it just didn’t pay to get up.


	6. Chapter 6

They were like frickin’ desert rats, swarming out of the hazy, heat rippled air, the wheels of their ragtag vehicles stirring up dust and sand in their wake. Bunch of delinquents, shooting and hollering like it was New Saint’s day and Cid was the present waiting on the windowsill, only all that was on the inside of the wrapping was blood and guts and organs.   
He emptied the little handgun he kept in the cockpit and didn’t do much more than piss them off as they circled him, then crouched with his back to the wreck of the Little Bronco with pike in hand and waited for them to get close enough to strike at. He wasn’t in the shape to venture out after them. Wasn’t in the shape really, with the busted arm, to do much fighting in any sense of the word, but hell if he was going down without giving some pain of his own back.   
They were playing with him. That he figured out right early on in the game. If they had enough ammo to waste shooting into the air, then they had enough to riddle him with bullets from a distance, instead of taunting him up close. That was the one plus with dealing with scum like this, they liked to play with their victims and they took chances doing it.   
Stupid chances that got one of them close enough for Cid to slice open with the end of his pike as one of the little much patched dune buggy’s rolled past. The unfortunate toppled from the back of the vehicle and instead of getting mad and serious, the others seemed to take enjoyment from the limp body bleeding into the dust, the sound of their laughter just audible over the roar of suped up engines. They didn’t even bother swerving to avoid running over the body in their circling of Cid’s position.   
A shotgun blast peppered the fuselage close to Cid’s shoulder and he dove forward, awkward and clumsy trying to protect the damaged arm. He came to his knees almost under the big front wheel of a rusty motor bike and ducked to avoid the swipe of a knife aimed for his head. He rolled and came up again, cursing at the pain and swung the pike at the closest body flashing by. The blade dinged harmlessly off the roll bar of the sand buggy, his target was in. His aim was off and his strength sorely lacking. If he’d had full power behind that blow he could have sliced right through that bar and into the flesh it protected.   
Impact glanced off his hip from behind, throwing him face forward into the hard, dusty earth. Laughter followed, and a closing of the circle. He could barely see from the dust in the air, or maybe that was his vision doubling. He cursed under his breath, clutching the pike in a sweaty palm, too far away from the plane to reclaim that partial shelter. He kept the pointy end of the pike out in front of him, spinning this way and that trying to keep the most threatening of them in his line of vision, but there was always something at his back.   
A boot kicked him between the shoulder blades and he staggered forward, into the path of a three-wheeler. He glanced off one of the big, back wheels and tumbled, hitting the bum arm and crying out as a blinding stab of pain shot up his arm and straight into the space behind his eyes.   
He got a knee under him, cradling the arm to his chest, holding the pike out, the shaft buried under his armpit, figuring he was about to go down for good and damned pissed that it would be in the middle of this damned desert with no one the wiser. No one that mattered that is.   
Something gunned into the mix of rag tag vehicles, against the flow of the pack’s general direction. There was a screeching impact of metal and another as somebody rear ended somebody else in the dust. Shouts of protest and curses and then a scream that was cut short.   
Cid used the pike to push himself to his feet, peering into dust that was clearing as the vehicles stopped. An open topped, sawed-off truck that he hadn’t noticed with the pack before had slammed into one of the sand buggies. It was driverless. Bodies were on the move, men shouting, screaming, guns firing and surprise, surprise they weren’t being aimed at him.   
He expected to see a flash of red in the mix, a flash of Vincent finally come to find out what had become of Cid. But it was no Vincent who was tearing through the ragtag wastelanders, it was Cloud, who was making a swath so fast and so brutal that half a dozen men were down before the rest got wise that they’d switched from being predators to prey and scrambled for their rides, spitting sand and dust in their wake as they high-tailed it out of there.   
Cid dropped to his knees before the dust even started to settle, letting the heavy pike hit the ground and curling in over his throbbing arm. That last fall had knocked something out of line, grating bone in a way that bone ought not ever be grated. If he didn’t have a stiff drink and soon he thought he might pass out.   
He heard Cloud skid to the ground next to him, half noticed the puny little curved saber he dropped at his knees, half noted that there was a lot of flesh showing through the rips in Cloud’s trousers and the tears in his sweater.   
“I was lookin’ for . . . you.” Cid ground his teeth at a wave of pain.  
“Let me see, Cid.” Cloud tried to pry his fingers away from their protective grip on his broken forearm. Cid wasn’t quite willing to let go.   
“Goddamnit, Cid.” Cloud said softly and Cid looked up at him, at a face with dark circles around the eyes, and bruising and scrapes on the skin. There was a nice set of marks around his throat like he’d come close to being strangled, and worse gashes on his body.   
“You look like shit.”  
“Yeah. Let’s get to the shade.” He helped Cid up and Cid was happy to let the kid support a good deal of his weight. He slid down against the Little Bronco’s fuselage under the shade of the wing and Cloud dropped to his knees at his side.  
“How bad are you hurt?”  
“My arm. Just my arm busted to hell. Where the fuck did you come from?’  
“I saw the plane go down.”  
“Hunn. Least somebody did. Goddamn it, boy, that hurts!!”  
Cid didn’t quite jerk his arm away from Cloud’s probing fingers, but it took a whole shitload of willpower not to.   
“Don’t make it worse.”  
“I’m not.” Cloud said softly, feeling along the line of Cid’s arm, fingers a helluva lot more gentle than you’d expect, all things considered.   
“Its out of line. I’m going to straighten it.”  
“Aww . . . shit.” Cid pressed his back into the plane and shut his eyes, waiting for the inevitable.   
It came and it hurt like all kind of hell, but there was some bit of relief afterward, so he could sit there looking at nothing but the back of his eyelids in relative comfort while Cloud resplinted the arm.  
“Y’know.” Cid murmured, starting to think longingly about tobacco for the first time in a while. “You almost got a woman’s touch with this doctoring shit. Light fingers.”  
Cloud didn’t comment, sinking into a deeper slouch, hands on knees, head bowed, in the shade next to Cid.   
“You okay?” Cid ventured.  
Cloud didn’t comment to that either.   
“Damn lucky, you being close enough to see me go down. Who the hell were those bozo’s? What the fuck was it that took my plane down?”  
“Wastelanders. High end materia blast.”  
“No shit. On both counts. Wanna give more details?”  
“No.” Cloud shifted around to get his back to the plane and leaned there, head back, eyes shut and drawing in the kind of deep breaths a man did when he was on his last leg and trying to gather energy that just wasn’t there.   
“The hell - !!” Cid swung around the best he could with his arm clutched to his chest. “I got two planes down ‘cause o’ you, boy. I damn well better get some explanation.”  
Cloud cracked his eyes open and canted a questioning stare at Cid. “Two?”  
“Bastards tried to take me out in Rocket Town. Said something ‘bout taking out your backup or some nonsense. Blew one of Sierra’s engines. Rat bastard, sons of bitches!”  
“You were out here . . . looking for me?”  
“yeah.” Cid grumbled. “Was lookin’ to save your ass and here you go savin’ mine, instead.”  
Cloud was silent for a time, then. “Vincent wasn’t with you?”  
Cid cursed, long and creatively. “Don’t ask me where the idiot is. Out there somewhere.” He waved his good arm. “Lookin’ to do what, I haven’t a clue. Crop circles ‘re easier to read than that bastard. So, why don’t you do me a favor, since we’re resting against the ruins of the latest favor I done you, and tell me what the fuck is going on here.”   
Cloud took a breath, swallowing, getting that look he got when he was trying to gather words when talk didn’t come easy to him. And he spilled it. Oh, not all, Cid was damned sure that a whole hell of a lot of things were held back from the painful pauses and the reluctant body language. He’d never known Cloud to outright lie, least not when he had an inkling he was doing it, but the stuff he left out was tantamount to larceny sometimes. Cid had never figured out if it was just he didn’t want to burden other folk with his troubles, or if he was simply that closed off.   
Nevertheless, even the bare gist of what Cloud was telling him now was enough to make a man get goosebumps. Deranged super-Soldiers on the loose with visions of Sephiroth in their heads. Now if that wasn’t scary, nothing was.   
“What direction is Gold Saucer in?” Cloud finally asked.  
“North east. Probably.”  
“You’re not sure?”  
“Do I look like I got a built in compass? I’m all turned around, but . . . north east is my best bet.”  
“Which way is that?” Cloud shaded his eyes, looking out over the heat-baked landscape.  
The sun was straight up over head, not giving Cid a clue. “Damned if I know, but there’s a compass in the dash. Climb up into the cockpit and pry her out.”   
It wasn’t like scavenging from the Little Bronco would make a spits worth of difference she was as dead as a plane could be. Might as well make use of her pieces and parts.   
Cloud pushed himself up and took the little curved saber with him as he scaled the fuselage and climbed up to the canted cockpit. He slid back down the side of the plane and dropped onto the sand next to Cid with the little compass in hand. Cid took it, feeling a little pang of loss and figured out which way they needed to go.  
“Thata’way.”  
“Okay. Let’s get moving.” Cloud pushed himself up and held out a hand for Cid. There were a couple of vehicles abandoned by the wastelanders. The truck Cloud had come in on had a rumpled hood where he’d rammed into the circling band of wastelanders, but there was a big three wheeler with a padded back seat and big plastic tub maybe a quarter full of water strapped to the back. That was a welcome sight.  
“Wait a minute.” Cid let Cloud help him up, and stood swaying a moment before his balance kicked in. “That’s a crappy little pig sticker you got there. Go check in the Bronco’s storage hatch and see if you can’t find something better.”  
Cloud lifted a brow at him, curious, but didn’t ask questions. He went to the back of the plane, sporting just a slight limp now that adrenaline had cut out, and after rummaging about in the tumbled contents, withdrew the big-assed sword that Vincent had liberated from Gold Saucer security. Cloud actually smiled, holding the thing almost reverently.   
“Cid . . . where did you . . .?” He couldn’t finish the thought, swaying of a sudden and catching himself with a hand upon the side of the plane. He leaned there, shuddering, holding the sword against his body and whether he was having a moment of weakness, or pain or just simple gratitude, Cid couldn’t tell.   
Cid didn’t ask. It was the type of moment a man needed a little privacy during. He turned his back and trudged out to look over the abandoned three-wheeler. The thing stank of sweat and oil. There was a major leak under the engine casing that had spattered the back axial, and Cid hoped to hell it had the juice to get them back to civilization.   
“Grab that jug of water and that pack.” He directed Cloud once the kid had seemed to pull himself together. The water, well, you could never have too much in a place like this and the pack contained some things from the Little Bronco that he couldn’t bear to leave to the desert sun, as well as the few dry rations he’d been able to get at with his arm busted to hell.   
“Its going to be bumpy.” Cloud commented and Cid tightened his lips, foreseeing a great deal of pain. He had Cloud help him make a sling out of his bomber’s jacket and wrapped the arm snug to his chest. It would protect it somewhat.  
Cloud was right. It was bumpy as hell. It jarred healthy bones. He held on to the various straps and buckles of Cloud’s sheath and ground his teeth, cursing during the worst of the treacherous terrain, sweating away more liquid than a body could afford out here in this heat.   
Time seemed to stretch on forever, but according to his watch, it was really less than an hour they’d been traveling when they saw the dark exhalation of an explosion in the far distance west of them. Cid was a pretty good judge of distance and he figured forty, fifty miles at the least, which meant it had been a big blast.   
Cloud skidded to a stop, shading his eyes to stare at the dissipating cloud of smoke.   
“What in hell was that?” Cid asked.  
“I don’t know - - the outpost maybe. I lost track of which way I came.”  
“You an me both, kid. You think that crazy ex-soldier - no offense - turned back and took out his hideout?”  
Cloud glanced over his shoulder, one brow faintly arched. “I doubt it. I think he’s got a purpose and its taking him east.”  
“Shinra?”  
Cloud shrugged. “Rufus’s father might have commissioned the experiments that altered him, but it was Rufus that ordered him and his squad taken out.”  
“Yeah, and combine that with how bad Sephiroth’s got it in for Shinra, I guess him heading east to Midgar is a pretty good bet.”  
They could head back the way of the explosion and see for sure, but it was a damned long ways off, further than Gold Saucer, by Cid’s estimation and they just didn’t have the water to be traipsing out in the desert. Common sense said keep heading towards civilization. But in the back of his mind, he kept wondering if Vincent had had a hand in that explosion. And if he had, they were heading in the opposite direction, leaving him out there alone. Or as alone as a man could be with the remnants of a wasteland gang prowling about and god knew what else.   
By the time they saw the towering gleam that was Gold Saucer in the distance, Cid’s nerves were in a knot. It was damned useless to get himself worked up every time Vincent up and disappeared on him, because 1, Vincent could take care for himself and 2, Cid would be a raving madman if he stressed and worried all the times Vincent wasn’t within reach. But that was a goddamned brutal desert out there and a man couldn’t help but be concerned.   
“Damn.” Cloud said softly and drew Cid’s attention back to Gold Saucer. The tower had been battered last he’d seen it, but it hadn’t been leaning precariously. A good portion of the massive foot mangled and just plain gone and the tremendous weight of the structures above were beginning to collapse the support. Cid was no structural analyst, but his basic engineering and common sense told him that if some major shoring up wasn’t done and soon, the whole tower would topple. Apparently he wasn’t the only one to have come to that dour conclusion for the everything save the shanty shacks of the desert prison had been cleared away from the left side of the thing and all the activity had backed off for about a two hundred yard radius on the side that common sense said the tower wouldn’t topple.   
The was a helluva lot more armed presence now than there had been when he and Vincent had been through here. Shinra blue uniforms outnumbered the Gold Saucer security now. And the Shinra blues were armed to the teeth. They were riled up and swarming like worker ants, trying to get a handle on a situation that they’d never had control of to begin with. Big machinery had been brought in, cranes and whatnot that probably were part of Gold Saucer’s own construction fleet, and were doing what they could over at the base of the tower. Cid didn’t envoy those men their jobs.   
It wasn’t that hard to walk right into the mess. They weren’t doing much in the way of setting up a perimeter around the outside, being more concerned with keeping folks out of the danger zone around the foot of the mega structure. There were a lot of civilians in the crowd, and bewildered park employees. All he and Cloud had to do was just walk into the crowd and nobody paid them a moment’s heed.   
They didn’t even need to ask what had happened, it was all people could talk about. A man had come in from the desert. Security hadn’t even tried to stop him, but he’d taken out a dozen men all the same. And when they’d come after him with more powerful weaponry, he’d wiped them out and calm as you please and while the survivors were scattering, he’d stood there laughing, gathering power, and aimed one tremendous blast of materia fueled energy at the base of the Gold Saucer and simply disappeared into the confusion as all hell was breaking loose.  
Cloud didn’t say a thing to that, just tightened his lips and went quiet and emotionless. Cid cursed enough for the both of them. Then cursed some more when someone jostled him and hit the arm. That got Cloud out of his shell. He caught Cid’s good arm to get his attention and pointed to a row of temporary tents that had been set up a good ways beyond the danger zone. A couple of them had med symbols.   
They weeded their way through the crowd towards them, hoping like hell some overzealous security man didn’t see Cloud’s sword and give them grief over it. They got Cid in line and soon as a nurse with a Shinra symbol on her lab coat took him under her wing, Cloud murmured that he was going to take a look around.   
“Fine.” Cid shouted back, as the rather manly woman was urging him into the tent. “You just don’t go far, hear. I’ll kick your ass myself if you cut out on me.”

Diablo was heading towards Midgar. Cloud was certain of it. The only thing was, he wasn’t entirely sure he cared enough about the state of Rufus Shinra’s health to follow in the madman’s tracks. If Diablo took out Rufus, Cloud wouldn’t loose sleep over it. Hell, it would be just retribution, all things considered. Rufus still had an open ended hit out on any surviving member of Diablo’s squad. If Diablo struck first . . . well, those were the breaks when you played high stakes games.   
It wasn’t like Sephiroth was going to emerge from the shell of Diablo’s body like he had Kadaj, right? There were no more pieces of Jenova out there to fuel that transformation. No more raw material to bring him over the edge between half-life and life. That’s what Rufus had claimed at any rate.   
Cloud stood watching a group of ShinRa elite’s disembark from a short range air transport and shuddered. He couldn’t help it, it just came over him like he’d stepped into a current of frigid air. Shinra elite. The best Shinra had to offer these days. Highly trained, highly armed, highly deadly and still the whole unit probably couldn’t have lasted more than a handful of minutes in close combat with a super-Soldier like Diablo. Like Sephiroth had been. Like Zack.   
Rufus Shinra could surround himself with men like these and Diablo would still get through. His Turks might hold him off a little longer, some of them being uniquely talented, but still they weren’t what Diablo was. They couldn’t face up to him.  
Cloud couldn’t face up to him. He took a breath, stepping back into the shadow of a truck as the elite squad marched past. That last thought had come upon him unawares and it had come with a certain amount of apprehension that he didn’t like feeling. But he couldn’t shake it. Couldn’t shake the trembly nausea he felt in the pit of his stomach when he thought too hard about Diablo, because inevitably everything would boil down to Diablo’s breath on his neck and Diablo’s body heavy and hard atop his own and himself - - just - - not - - able - - to fend him off.   
“Are you okay?” A female voice asked him, a female hand came close to touching his arm and he felt himself reflected in her concern, hunched over, one hand fisted in his hair, the other at his mid-section, nails tearing gashes in the palm of his hand where the glove had been torn.   
He straightened, pushing past her concern, striding for a few blind steps into the crowd, before gathering enough wits to settle on a destination. Beyond the spill of people, out into the fringes of the desert were the air transports. They were lightly guarded. Two ShinRa blues to each blocky vehicle. He could get past the security no problem, and he had enough faith in Cid to know that even one handed, the man could fly them blind.   
Even though the fate of Rufus Shinra meant relatively little to him, he needed to get back to Midgar and find out what had happened to Tifa and Barret. Diablo’s bragging aside, neither one of them were easy targets. And since Diablo himself had been here targeting Cloud, it was unlikely that his wasteland riffraff had successfully taken down both Tifa and Barret.   
But until he saw them, safe and sound, he couldn’t shake the nagging little curl of fear in his gut. That and the fact that if Diablo was headed towards Midgar, Rufus Shinra might not be the only call he stopped to make.  
He made the circuit of the perimeter the blues had sat up on the western side of the tower base, checking out security and the sorts of long range weapons that might have that would be capable of taking down an airborne target, if the theft of one of their transports went noticed. He could see the puffs of dust along the desert route from the Gold Saucer outbase at the base of the mountains. It wasn’t an often used route, since personal used the air trolleys, but it was the only way for the big equipment to get here. A long trip for a ponderous piece of machinery or transport trucks hauling massive materials.   
He wished them all speed, not wishing the see the towering entertainment monstrosity fall. Despite not particularly enjoying the bulk of its attractions, it was a vital center of relief for a world that had seen too much misery.   
He tore his eyes away from the mangled base of the tower and started back towards the med-tents. Cid was coming out as he was walking up, a new plasti-cast on his arm and a considerably more pleasant look on his craggy face than he’d had when he entered. God, if they’d shot him full of pain killers it meant flying was out.   
“You okay?” Cloud edged up to him warily.   
Cid’s grin faded a bit. “Yeah, Just feels damned good to have bones aligned back the way they should be. Nurse had nice hands. Smelled good too.”  
“Tell me you’re not high on pain killers.”  
Cid canted his head at him. “What makes you think that?”  
“You were grinning.”   
“Yeah, I grin sometimes. I laugh. Unlike some folk, I could name. Why?”  
“Found some Shinra air transports.”  
“Yeah? Well, all right.” Cid grinned again.  
“You are on drugs.” Cloud complained.  
Cid held up the fingers of his good hand maybe half an inch apart. “Just a little. Don’t mean I can’t fly.”  
Cloud took a breath, then another and started heading away, with Cid on his heels.  
“Vin’s out in that damned desert.” Cid said at his shoulder. “Don’t wanna leave without knowing he’s okay.”  
Cloud frowned, torn. Getting to Tifa and his friends in Midgar before Diablo reached the city was a driving need. Leaving here and abandoning Vincent to the desert made nausea curl in his stomach. A wave of lightheadedness came over him and he faltered, swaying and Cid’s good hand clamped down upon his arm.   
For a frightening moment, vision warped down a looping tunnel that he had little control over and there was nothing to do but lean there against Cid’s support until it passed.   
“Why the fuck,” Cid said and may have repeated the question more than once, but Cloud wasn’t sure. “Didn’t you get yourself checked out by the medics? When was the last time you ate?”  
“I don’t know.”  
“Don’t know?” Cid’s voice rose.  
“I don’t remember.” Cloud extracted his arm from Cid’s grasp, wanting them walking again now that the level of Cid’s voice was attracting attention.  
“Well, fuck, boy. You trying to burn yourself out. You ain’t bulletproof, no matter what you think.”  
“I don’t think that.”   
“Then take care of your damned self, before you break down when you can’t afford to be breaking down. If we come across the bastard that did all this, don’t expect me to take him out if you’re too fucked up to lift that goddamned big sword of yours. When’s the last time you slept?”  
Cloud cast him a narrow glare and Cid glowered right back, not taking the hint.  
“This morning.” Cloud said.  
“You do it on your own, or somebody knock you into it?”  
He refused to answer that, stuffing his hands in his pockets and glaring at the ground before his boots.  
“Yeah, that’s what I thought.” Cid said. “Goddamned kids, thinkin’ they’re immortal. You look like fuckin’ shit, I mention that?”  
“You mentioned.”  
They reached the edge of the perimeter, Cid still grumbling, and studied the dark shapes of the blocky Shinra transports. In another hour the sun would be down. It was already darkening and there was no residual glow from the heights of the Gold Saucer to throw the area below in perpetual illumination.   
“Take the one on the end.” Cid suggested, strolling that way himself. They bypassed a group of Gold Saucer security who didn’t bat an eye at them, then Cid stopped to light a cigarette at the temporary guard rail separating the landing area from the crowd, while Cloud vaulted the fence and scurried into the shadow of the transport, low and fast.   
He didn’t draw his sword, having no desire to kill the guards. He took them out quickly, dragging the first one back with an arm around his neck and a restriction of air intake that had the man on the ground in less that fifteen seconds. The second he had to get a little more violent with when the man turned to speak to his partner and found Cloud instead. Cloud slammed his head against the landing gear before he could get a cry of alarm out. He dragged the both of them into the shadows beyond the nose of the craft. He spun at the crunch of boots, but it was only Cid strolling up to the craft like he had every legal reason to be there.   
Cloud followed him up the ramp and onto the transport. There was a low, narrow walk lined with benches that led to a cramped cockpit. Cid eased himself down into the pilot’s chair and started familiarizing himself with the controls.   
“We’re making some desert sweeps around that base to look for Vincent and I don’t wanna hear shit about it.”  
Cloud stood behind him, looking out the dusty, slanted windshield at the flat, dark expanse of desert. He didn’t argue the point. As worried as he was about Tifa and Barret, Vincent’s possible trouble was closer at hand.  
“All right. This thing is child’s play. Go pull the wheel blocks and we’re outta here.”  
Cloud went to do as he was told, moving down the ramp into the shadows and pulling the big wooden blocks out from behind the front wheel. He circled the craft on the desert side and paused to take one cautionary look towards the mulling military presence on the other side of the barrier, just to make sure there was no undue attention directed their way.   
No one seemed the wiser. He turned to retreat up the ramp and there was a man at his shoulder. Just there, defying every honed sense he possessed. He was three paces back with his sword out of its sheath before the details registered.   
Red cloak, pale skin, calm amber eyes. Cloud took a shaky breath and stood there with the sword still out, not feeling nearly so calm as Vincent looked and trying to come up with adequate words to express his lack of appreciation for the utterly silent method of Vincent’s approach.  
“Yeah, he does that to me all the time.” Cid’s voice drifted down from the top of the ramp. He’d obviously come to see what the hold up was and found Cloud facing off against a Vincent who looked no worse for wear considering he’d trekked out of the same dangerous desert the two of them had. “An’ though I can understand the need to beat the crap outta him when he does it, you might want to sheath that thing ‘fore somebody notices.”  
Cloud tightened his lips and slid the sword back into its sheath.  
“It’s good to see you’re okay.” Vincent said to him. “We were worried.”  
“Yeah, and I was worried about you, asshole, but does that get me any consideration?” Cid stomped back down to the front of the transport, Cloud and Vincent following in his wake. The whirr of the ramp pulling up and the hatch closing made the floor vibrate softly.  
“What happened to you, Cid?” Vincent slid past Cloud to get a closer look at Cid and Cid’s bum arm.   
Cid said something foul and lit a cigarette. “Shot my fucking . . . . son of a bitch shot down the Little Bronco. Just took her out of the air easy as pie and she’s out there all crumpled in this fucking desert.”  
“And you?”  
“I’m sitting here, ain’t I? Busted up my arm, as you can see.”  
Vincent straightened, some small bit of alarm flashing through his shadowed eyes. He looked at Cloud as if for confirmation.  
Cloud shrugged, sinking down on one of the benches, wrapping a hand around a support strap in preparation for what would probably be a hasty take off. “I saw him go down. I went to help.”  
“Where the hell were you?” Cid demanded, considerably gruffer than the usual tones he took with Vincent.   
“I found their base.” Vincent said simply, frowning. “You were there?” he asked of Cloud.  
Cloud nodded.  
“It wasn’t your handiwork, the carnage in the bunker.” It wasn’t a question.  
“No.” Cloud agreed. “Did you destroy it?”  
Vincent put a hand on a hanging support strap as Cid hit the downward thrusters and the ship began to vibrate terribly. If there were shouts of protest from outside they couldn’t hear them over the turbines.   
“There were . . . things, beneath the surface of that place that needed an end. The seeds of atrocities that should never have been.”  
“I saw some of them.” Cloud said, still feeling the sting of those forced encounters. “I thought they were catching them . . . bringing them there from the outside.”  
“No.” Vincent said simply. “They were not.” Then when Cloud kept staring, waiting for something else, he shrugged. “There were levels to that place that the bandits probably never knew of. Abandoned by Shinra along with the things they had spawned, breeding all this time. I imagine they might have captured things that found a way from the outpost. It was remiss of Shinra not to have destroyed the place in their wake. I corrected the oversight.”  
Cloud wanted to ask how he’d known. How he’d found that base in the vast desert. How he was familiar with the workings of secret Shinra experimental outposts. But he doubted he’d get an answer he liked, so he looked away, down to the dark, featureless end of the transport as the ship rose, veering sharply skyward.   
There was some radio garble, a tinny voice asking for flight plan and orders, and Cid simply shut the radio off. It was doubtful they had the resources or the time to deal with one AWOL transport.   
Cid sat a course almost due north, only veering east when they got to the Coral mountains and then skimming the eastern edge of them and heading north east over the fertile lands between mountains and coastline towards the coastal port of Costa Del Sol.   
“You know this little air bucket ain’t got it in ‘er to make an ocean crossing. Gonna have to find another way ‘cross the pond to the eastern continent.” Cid said over his shoulder. “Good thing is, the man you’re chasin’ ain’t going to have any easier way to get over there, either.”  
The thing was, Cloud wasn’t sure he was chasing Diablo. He wasn’t sure he wanted anything at the moment other than to insure the safety of his friends. This wasn’t like the last time, when Kadaj had had that little piece of Jenova to initiate Sephiroth’s crossing from the purgatory he was trapped in and into the realm of the living.   
“Are you all right?” Vincent sat down opposite him, elbows on knees.   
Cloud blinked, forcing his attention away from the featureless back end of the transport to somewhere around Vincent’s general area.  
He shrugged, a noncommittal answer to a difficult question.  
“He’s running on empty,” Cid commented from up in the cockpit.   
“This man. This Diablo. He beat you at Gold Saucer?”  
Cloud tightened his mouth. “No. Yes.” Remembering the child the man had used as a disposable shield hurt. “He took away my options.”  
“Then he’s shrewd and merciless.”  
“Yes.”  
“And mad?”  
“Yeah. But, not like Sephiroth mad. Not cold. There’s more carnage than calculation to his fits.”  
“You saw Sephiroth in him?”  
Vincent wanted at the heart of the matter and Cloud didn’t want to revisit it. But to deny it, meant depriving the people who might back him up in a tight spot valuable information.  
He took a breath, fighting off the involuntary shiver than ran across his skin. “Yes. Really, really close to the surface. He wants out. Bad. I don’t think Diablo wants to let him. Diablo was never a big fan so I guess that works in our favor.”  
“Why are you alive, Cloud?” Vincent’s amber eyes bored into him and he flinched from the directness of that state. Why was he alive when he should have been at the top of Sephiroth's hit list? God knew Diablo held no humanitarian impulses that might have stayed his hand from one more kill. It was a Good question. He wished he knew an answer that didn’t make him sick to his stomach.   
“I don’t know.”   
Vincent nodded, then leaned back on his bench, resting his head against the padded headrest and shutting his eyes. The fact that he was willing to let it go was a gift.   
“Two hours till Costa Del Sol, boys.” Cid announced from the front. “Might as well relax and catch up on some shut eye while you got the chance, cause I just heard some chatter on the civilian radio band that leads me to think there’s something not good going on there. Looks like Diablo got there before we did.”


	7. Chapter 7

Cloud couldn’t sleep during the flight. He tried, his body urging him that way out of sheer exhaustion, but his mind rebelled, rehashing every miserable thing that had happened during the last few days - - making connections to miserable things years past, contemplating things that hadn’t happened yet, but might, and swirling it all together in a mix that made his heart thrum in his chest and his gut churn.   
Sleep seemed improbable. Vincent seemed to doze. Slouched across from him with his arms crossed under his cloak, chin on chest and face entirely hidden from view between the high collar and the fall of midnight hair. He hadn’t said a thing since he’d questioned Cloud and Cloud was grateful for that since hiding things from Vincent was like hiding them from himself, only harder, because Cloud had become relatively good at self-denial over the years.   
Cid talked a great deal during those two hours from Gold Saucer to Costa Del Sol. Most of it was complaint and bitching about his planes and Vincent wondering off when a man needed him and close-mouthed kids that drew trouble like electro-magnetic generators. He cursed a lot, but Cloud figured most of that was the pain killers wearing off a little and him having to move the bum arm more than he ought, piloting the little transport.   
After a while, you learned to ignore Cid during his rants. To just tune him out and focus on your own troubles. It didn’t get Cloud any closer to sleep. And then Cid was yelling back at them that they were coming up on Costa Del Sol and to hold on to their asses, ‘cause he was coming down fast and low outside of town to avoid the wrong sort of attention from folks who might wonder why a ShinRa transport wasn’t sporting a ShinRa crew.   
Despite the warnings, the landing was a gentle one, in the dunes maybe a half mile outside of town.   
Costa Del Sol had always been a laid back, resort sort of town, but there was no denying the choice coastal location, and shippers had taken advantage. ShinRa had an established port there, one of their two big western stops for ocean travel between the continents. The civilian ports had grown as well, and all manner of cargo made its way through Costa Del Sol. It was inevitable, with that growing traffic that the quaint little beach resort would not stay as laid back and relaxed as it had once been. Oh, it still strived for that idyllic atmosphere. No shipping businesses were allowed within Old Costa Del Sol, no buildings constructed that did not meet with the local aesthetic, which meant that most of the warehouses and port authority buildings had been built on the far side of the port, across the dunes and away from the cobblestone streets and quasi-thatched roofs that topped sandstone buildings in the beach resort.   
It didn’t mean the town didn’t get business from sailors and dock workers and ShinRa personal, which meant that new ‘acceptable’ business’s had to crop up. New inns, taverns and beach front eateries and shops and entertainment’s that sprang up under palm-frawn awnings along the boardwalk. Cloud had been here a dozen times in the last few years, making deliveries and had seen the growth in progress. It was no surprise to him, trudging up the beach from the dune where they’d landed to see the boardwalk expanded half a mile and lit with the festive lights of business open for night tourists.   
There was a band playing on one of the decks in front of a restaurant. A rhythmic, tropical sounding music that had the patrons swaying in their seats or outright dancing. Whatever trouble Cid had heard about on the radio, hadn’t seemed to dampen these folk’s evening.   
They walked the boardwalk down the beach front, weaving around cafe tables that had spilled out onto the plank thoroughfare, avoiding gleefully drunken, half naked tourists with festive, umbrella decorated drinks in their hands.   
They bypassed the newer establishments and headed for the older part of town. You could see the lights of the port from there, and hear the occasional deep throated whistle of a ship’s horn coming in out from sea. The ShinRa lighthouse/control tower was a flashing beacon in the dark sky way down the concrete and metal docks that had obscured the beach on the port side of town.   
“We ought to go check out what sort of transport is down there.” Cid said wearily. “If we’re lucky there’s a ShinRa airship making a stopover. Not as fast as the Sierra - -” he shrugged, “but better’n takin’ a cruise.”  
“We don’t all need to go.” Vincent said, stopping on the red sandstone patio outside one of the older inns. “Neither one of you is up to prowling the docks with any sort of stealth tonight.”  
“Yeah, says you.” Cid grumbled querulously, still out of sorts with Vincent. Cloud let Cid do the arguing, frankly not up to it at the moment. He stood there while Cid bickered and Vincent responded in monosyllables. He felt his mind start to wonder again and snagged it with an in-drawn breath and the realization that the sword was getting damned heavy on his back. A bed was an attractive thought.   
“Cid. Shut up.” He muttered, getting a narrow eyed look from Cid for the interruption. “Let him go. Let’s see if they have rooms.”  
Cid mumbled something that was most likely a curse under his breath, turned the narrow stare on Vincent and growled. “Be back within a goddamned hour or I come out lookin’ for you, understand?”  
Vincent inclined his head, something in his eyes suggesting a smile might have crossed his lips behind the shield of his collar.   
Vincent melted into the night and Cid stood there staring at the darkness for a moment. Cloud pushed through the swinging double doors of the inn, letting Cid come to terms with whatever problem he was having with Vincent on his own. The lobby was small and empty, save for one sleepy clerk dozing off behind the counter. He’d stayed here before. It didn’t much matter that the carpets were worn or the lacquer chipping on some of the teak fixtures. It was cheap and clean and didn’t get the tourist trade the newer places did.   
“I need a couple of rooms.” He fought the urge to lean on the counter. If Vincent planned on sleeping at all, he figured he’d do it with Cid. If he’d been less wiped out, he might have felt a little sting of envy over that. As it was, if Vincent slumbered hanging from the ceiling like a big red bat, he couldn’t have cared less.   
“We’ve got one double.” The clerk said, yawning. “And that’s only because the guests who were staying there got nabbed by the constable for drunk and disorderly. Something happened down at the Saucer, I hear and we got a big influx of folks that were booted out and are on their way home.”  
“A double’s fine.”  
“Any trouble kicked up in town, ‘cause of it?” Cid clomped up behind Cloud, using his lance as an overlong walking stick.   
“A lot more drunks, a few more brawls.” The clerk said. “But that’s about it.”  
Cloud exchanged a look with Cid. If Diablo had been through here, he’d likely have brought trouble that the town would have talked about for weeks after, which meant either he’d gotten a hold of his sanity and had made a quiet passage or more likely, he hadn’t gotten here yet, if he was planning on making Costa Del Sol his departure point for the eastern continent at all.   
It almost would have been better if he had come through and left a smoking trail. At least then Cloud would have known where he was. Not knowing made a sick little knot in his gut.   
“200 gil a night for the room.” The clerk said. Cid paid, grumbling about overpriced resort town room rates. Cloud took the room key and started for the antiquated elevator with its manually sliding wrought iron cage door.  
Third floor. Room 318. His boots were overloud walking down the plank wood hallway. Or maybe it was just him, being oversensitive, suddenly feeling out of place in a sleepy hotel hallway.   
It was a corner room, with one seaside window and one overlooking the street in front of the hotel. It smelled a little of booze and cigarette smoke, from the previous occupants. The hotel staff had gotten around to making the beds, but hadn’t aired the room out yet. Cloud opened the seaside window first thing and leaned there staring out at the inky blackness that represented the ocean.   
“You take the shower first.” The bedsprings squeaked as Cid eased himself down on one of the beds. Cloud glanced over his shoulder at him, and Cid waved a hand, urging him towards the small bath. “Go on, you smell like you’ve been wallowing in blood n’ guts.”  
Which, in a way he had, after that night in the pit at the desert outpost. He sighed, and started in on the buckles that secured his shoulder sheath, easing it off, sword intact with a relief from weight that almost felt like sexual gratification. He arched his back, rotating his shoulders and the ache hit him like a fist in the back. Like several fists, zeroing in on the bruises and the half healed cuts and the hollow hurt of the through and through Diablo had scored in his side. If he sat down to take off his boots, he wasn’t sure he could get back up without embarrassing himself, so he leaned against the door frame to the bathroom and pulled them off, one by one and dropped them outside the door.   
Once inside, behind the shield of the door, he allowed the stiffness to show a little more, wincing as he shrugged the sweater off, and bent to step out of his pants. The shower was a box in the wall with frosted glass on the outside panel. There was a narrow wooden bench against the back wall. He stepped in and turned on the water, not caring that it took a few moments to warm up. It was water and it sluiced across his skin washing away the blood and the grim and the other things that stained him. He took a rag and the bar of coconut scented soap and scrubbed at his skin, determined to get rid of the subtle stench that Sephiroth - - no Diablo, had left on him. Not all of it would come, even though he’d opened scabs with his efforts. Part of it was on the inside, twining up with the shadow reek of Sephiroth that had always lurked inside him. That bit of poison that had always kept him from being entirely comfortable with life after Meteor . . . that had kept him from being entirely sane.   
He shuddered, seeing a thin mix of blood in the water at the bottom of the stall, spiraling down the drain with the rest. He looked down his body, slick and a little pink from the heat of the water and saw a trickle of red leaking from the wound in his side, the one Diablo had made - - how many days ago? Two, three? It couldn’t have been more, could it? The water and his scrubbing had broken the scab there as well. He’d had worse wounds, by far, but this one plagued him in a different way, with the memories of the child’s shocked face as she died, probably not even feeling the blade that pierced her - - of Diablo forcing his way inside for the first time, his arm blade no less devastating than - - -  
God. Cloud hissed, shaking his head hard, wet hair clinging to his face, blinding him to the physical but not the nightmare images that insisted on surging up in his mind.   
Stop it. Stop it!! He slammed his forehead into the tile under the shower head and leaned there, blessedly seeing nothing but bright lights for a moment. His knees shook and somewhere in the back of his mind the idea of sliding down the slick tile and sitting there under the spray of hot water until his skin melted off was vaguely appealing. But then, Cid would get in a snit for having to wait for his own shower and Cloud would have to listen to those complaints for the rest of the night.   
He pushed himself away from the wall, cut off the water and snagged one of the big towels on the rack next to the shower stall. He dried off half-heartedly, hair still wet and dripping down his back, skin still slick in places. It didn’t matter the warmth of the room would eat the moisture up. He wrapped the towel around his hips, grabbed up his pile of clothing and left the bath accompanied by a gust of steam. He dropped the clothing on the floor next to the bed and collapsed onto it, not bothering to pull back the covers.   
God, but the pillow was sweet soft, even if it was slowly dampening, soaking up the wetness of his hair.   
“Better be some damned hot water left.” Cid grumbled and Cloud found that complaint amusing for some reason and let his lips twitch into a smile before he dropped into darkness. 

Straight from the shower, Cid lit a cigarette by the window, leaning against the frame and blowing smoke out into the cool ocean air. What a relief, nicotine in his lungs and the dust off his skin. Like Cloud, he’d hesitated donning dirty clothes so soon after getting a body clean, so he wore a towel or two. One around his shoulders and one wrapped around bony hips. Granted, he didn’t wear it as well as the kid, having hairy legs and knobby knees and a forty-plus year old body. The years did things to a man, that tended to knock ego down a peg or two. Vincent never complained.   
He didn’t finish the cigarette, finding the draw of the bed more intensive than the need for every last lung full of smoke. He stubbed it out on the cil and flicked the butt out the window, then cradling his bad arm, ambled towards the second bed. He eased himself down, sighing as the springs gave just a fraction under his weight. Nothing like a nice, firm mattress to soothe a man’s sore back.   
He sat there, leaning over his knees and stared at Cloud. The kid had sprawled into bed and fallen asleep where he fell. Smooth, golden skin was sporting a lot of bruising and scrapes. Deeper cuts here and there that looked like claw marks. The kid had gone through the ringer all right. Little wonder he was out before his head hit the pillow.   
Cid felt a sympathy that went bone deep, the ache of his own pain and exhaustion dragging him down. He was too goddamned old for this traipsing around fighting gangs of lunatics. He’d had the security of Sierra and a good business and a look what happened. It was enough to make a man shed a tear and he might have, now that he had a moment to rest, save that Vincent might show up at his elbow with no warning or the kid might wake up and damned if he would be caught at it.  
He eased himself back, careful of the casted arm, and stared at the lazily turning spokes of the ceiling fan. What he ought to be doing, was finding a phone and making a call to Rocket Town to see what progress they’d had with the engine. If they needed parts, then he ought to be hunting down sources and arranging delivery. He had some favors out there that could be called in.   
He shut his eyes for a second, having no intention of sleeping until Vincent showed back up, then blinked them open, disoriented, at a hand on his shoulder.   
“What the - -”   
Vincent held a metal finger up to his lips for silence and Cid momentarily froze thinking danger, but then it sank in that Vincent didn’t have a gun out, and his eyes were a redolent amber instead of demonic red, so lunatics were probably not outside the door.   
“A ShinRa airship from the East refueled here this afternoon, headed for Gold Saucer. It will be back through tomorrow to refuel for the return trip.” Vincent said softly.  
Cid pinched the bridge of his nose, then ran a hand through hair that was bone dry, which meant Vincent had been longer coming back than the hour he’d promised. But, beggars shouldn’t be choosers, so Cid let it slide in favor of curiosity as to what sort of transport they were talking about. “Troop carrier? Supply delivery? What?”  
“I don’t know. We can find out when we slip aboard her tomorrow.”  
Cid grunted, hoping like hell that slipping aboard didn’t entail a fight, because none of them - - well - - discounting Vincent and maybe Cloud - - were up to it.   
“Why don’t you lay down and get some rest?” He patted the mattress next to him. The bed was bigger than his bunk on Sierra and God knew they’d shared that enough times without getting in each other’s way. Vincent glanced over him to Cloud, who hadn’t moved much since he’d fallen asleep.   
“I think I’ll clean up a little,” Vincent said softly, gently laid his human hand on Cid’s cast, before rising and heading towards the bath with a quiet swish of cloak. Vincent had a thing for cleanliness, which was odd since the man didn’t sweat that Cid had ever noticed, didn’t sprout stubble or emit body odor like any normal human being. He wasn’t normal, of course, but - - well, Cid didn’t dwell much on that.   
Cid lay there for a while, listening to the muffled sound of water through the door. He glanced at Cloud, who hadn’t stirred, glanced the other way to the little wicker table next to his bed and the mostly empty pack of smokes and almost made a grab for them. But no, Vincent wasn’t much for the smoke and he wasn’t ready to go stick his head out the window to scratch a not too insistent nicotine itch. Better to get up and skulk up to the bathroom door, and hover on the outside of it with his shoulder on the frame wondering if Vincent would resent the intrusion. Vincent liked his privacies. He liked his little seclusion’s and his secrets and he liked Cid because Cid didn’t pry into them and because Cid knew when to back off and give a man space.   
He rapped softly on the door anyway and there was a moment or two before the water shut off and it opened. Vincent looked out at him from the crack, a slice of pale skin from his face to his pants, the hair around his face and shoulders a little damp, the long ends clumping together here and there and clinging to his skin.   
Pretty, Cid thought. Pretty patterns of black hair on skin that held too many pale, pale tracings of old scars.   
“You busy?” Cid inquired and Vincent lifted a dark brow, mouth quirking a little. He stepped back and let Cid push the door open enough to slip inside of the small bathroom, and pull it shut behind him. Vincent’s cloak, scarf and black shirt were hanging neatly from the hook on the back of the door. His gun belts were on the closed toilet top. He was using a wash rag and the sink instead of the shower. God knew the reasoning.   
“Its not a bad shower.” Cid said, leaning against the sink.   
Vincent shrugged, standing there under the glare of an incandescent light bulb, bare chested, basically unarmed and antsy because of it, even if it was only Cid in the room with him.   
“I regret,” Vincent started, not quite meeting his eyes. “Your arm.”  
“Not your fault. Plane met ground. Boom. I’m lucky I all busted was the arm.”  
Vincent shook his head. “No, I should have been . . .”  
“What, with me? Yeah, it mighta been nice sharing the pain with somebody else, but you damn well couldn’t of stopped it. If you wanna regret taking off like a bat outta hell without telling me why - - really, why - - that you can regret.”  
Vincent’s amber eyes snapped up to him, narrowed, but there was something mournful almost beyond the surface emotion.   
“You wanna tell me how you knew about that place?” Cid asked, because that place, that bunker in the desert was at the root of the problem. He’d been evasive with the answer before and Cid was tired of not knowing exactly what the hell was going on.   
“No.” Vincent said.   
“No?” Cid repeated. “Okay then, let me give it a shot. You weren’t no Turk when you became aquatinted with that bunker or another one like it. You were a guinea pig. Close?”  
A spark of anger flashed in Vincent’s eyes, and amber burned to orange around the pupil.  
“And that bastard Hojo or another like him played mad scientist and contributed to the long list of things they did that fucked you up? Warm?”  
“Hojo was - - selfish - - with his pet projects. It was only ever at his hand or his direction that I was - -” Vincent swallowed and the eyes went full red, the pupil stretched long like a cats. “ - - fucked up, as you say.”  
Cid stood there and waited, wishing for that cigarette he’d passed by earlier, nerves tingling with agitation he was either picking up from Vincent or honestly coming by, frustrated that he hadn’t had an up close and personal hand in Hojo’s demise.  
“Yes, I saw firsthand . .” Vincent started, then took a breath and looked past Cid at nothing, gathering his thoughts. “There was another such lab on Goblin Island which they did destroy. I assumed the others were similarly disposed of. It would have been the - - responsible - - thing to do, but I suppose ShinRa had other problems to occupy its resources. Other priorities.”  
“Yeah, what’da they care what gets out to cause a ruckus ‘mongst the poor souls who’re living out here in the desert.”  
“There was a breeding lab in the mountains north of Nibelheim. One near Junon that may or may not have been destroyed after Meteor. Rumors even of a large facility deep under Midgar. A few others, I think.”  
“So, then we get our butts in gear after we solve this problem of Cloud’s and go and see for ourselves if ShinRa cleaned house. And if not - - we do it ourselves.”  
Vincent canted his head, eyes fading back to amber. “I could not ask you . .”  
“You didn’t ask, idiot. I offered. Difference there. ‘Sides which, the Sierra’ll be fixed by then, Gods willin’, and it’ll be no big thing, traipsing around looking.”  
Vincent didn’t answer right away, caught up in looking at his metal hand resting on the white porcelain of the sink, so Cid caught a fistful of black hair and pulled him forward.  
“Okay?”  
He got a nod, which might have been reluctant or might have just been Vincent’s inability to show proper human emotion. Cid pulled him closer to seal the deal, mouth on mouth, a dexterous meeting on tongues, Cid’s stubble against the woman-smooth skin of Vincent’s chin. That was the only womanly thing about him, body hard and firm against Cid’s as he leaned into the thing, pressing Cid back against the door, human hand gripping Cid’s good shoulder with a strength that would probably leave marks. The sharp tips of metal fingers touched his cast, then flickered away, skimming down to his bony hip instead.   
Cid leaned his head back against the cloak padded door and sighed, deep and thankful, as Vincent sank down before him, pulling the towel loose and rubbing his cheek against Cid’s bobbing erection like a cat trying to manipulate supper out of its master. Then he caught it in his mouth and proceeded to rock Cid’s world and Cid ground his teeth and dug his fingers into his palms in efforts to keep his mouth shut. Cloud might well sleep through quiet moving about the room and muffled showers, but Cid doubted the kid would snooze through moans, groans and passionate outcries, even if they were behind the bathroom door.   
But damned if it wasn’t hard not to react, not to pound his fists against the door and cry out in encouragement at the warm, wet pressure around his cock. At soft lips and velvet tongue and the occasional scrape of teeth along sensitive skin and veins. He buried the fingers of his good hand in Vincent’s hair, probably not as gently as he might have, tangling his fingers like talons in silk soft strands. Vincent didn’t complain. Vincent never did.  
And for a few brief minutes there, Cid shattering mind figured that all he really needed out of life was Vincent’s talented mouth and Vincent’s warm fingers on his nuts, manipulating and squeezing, pulling, stroking, while his cock thought it was going to heaven under the ministrations of Vincent’s mouth.   
And damned if Vincent didn’t take him there, and he almost lost his footing at the intensity of it, and had to brace his legs on either side of Vincent’s knees and grip Vincent’s shoulder with his good hand while instinct took over and tried to ram his cock down Vincent’s throat in the spasms accompanying orgasm.   
Vincent endured it, throat working as he swallowed and then leaning there as the steam went out of Cid’s sails and he began to soften, still enveloped in the warmth of a mouth.   
After a moment, Vincent pulled back, canting his head up to watch Cid as Cid forced his fingers to loosen their death-grip on Vincent’s hair, smoothing it instead. He was spent and he hadn’t done a damned thing other than stand there and receive and being on the receiving end without offering reciprocation sat wrong with him. He grimaced, figuring how he was going to work it in this cramped space, with stiff knees and one bum arm.  
“It’s okay.” Vincent got from his knees to his feet with inhuman grace and leaned there with his cool skin against Cid’s heated chest for a moment, sharing the slow, steady beat of his heart. It seeped into Cid, that calmness, and his own thudding pulse slowed.   
“There’s a laundry down the hall.” Vincent told him. “Give me a few gil and I’ll put your clothes in, and Clouds.”  
Damned if Vincent couldn’t throw a man for a loop, going from breathless sex to everyday mundane in the blink of an eye. Cid took a breath, gathering his wits and glanced around at the clothing he’d left discarded on the bathroom floor after his shower. Clean clothes wouldn’t be a bad thing.   
“Yeah, okay.” 

Cloud woke up groggy, not feeling nearly as rested as he should have, considering that the wan light of early morning lit the room through the two open windows. He ached. His side hurt deep down beneath flesh and muscle, making him want to lay there with his eyes closed and just vegetate while the world ticked on around him. Of course, that option never seemed viable when he really wanted it.   
He opened his eyes and sat up, frowning at the stitch in his side, absently touching the crusted edges of the wound. He was naked under the sheet, but his skin was clean and smelled faintly of coconut, which recalled the shower last night and vaguely the trip from it to the bed which he found himself in now. The other bed was rumpled but empty, as was the room. His clothing was neatly folded upon the small table between the windows, his boots on the floor beneath it, his sword against the wall in the corner and his assorted gear stashed on the floor by his boots. Seeing the big sword made him feel better, let him release the curling bud of unease and flop back down onto the soft bed, even if just for a few moments of sheer creature comfort.  
Of course laying there, now that he was fully awake, encased in a comfortable mattress and a feather pillow, with a sweet breeze coming in through the windows made him feel guilty. Like he ought to be up and busting his ass, even though he wasn’t quite sure at the moment what he ought to be busting his ass doing, an ocean away from where he wanted to be.   
He needed to call Tifa. It had been - - how many days since he’d last tried - - and if she were okay, then she’d have access to a phone by now and if she weren’t - - well, he wasn’t prepared to accept that possibility just yet. There wasn’t a phone in the room, but there’d be one down in the lobby.   
He pushed himself up again, striding over to his clothes, which were miraculously fresh smelling and clean, albeit, ripped, slashed and torn in places. He dressed, frowning at the particular slash that severed the sweater zipper half way down. The corresponding scratch on his chest was almost healed, but then it had been a shallow one. He buckled belts and strapped on shoulder guard and sheath and slid the sword in last of all. It was considerably lighter than it had been last night when he’d staggered up here. There wasn’t a key to the room lying around, so he figured Cid had it, wherever Cid was.   
He went down to the lobby, which had a few more people in it this morning taking advantage of the free coffee and donuts set up on a side table by the door. He ignored those and went for the desk. There was a girl behind it this morning and she looked at him, and looked at him again and smiled nervously. He thought it might have been the sword.   
“Do you have a phone?”  
“There’s a pay phone outside.” She was still smiling. Cloud could see a phone on the desk behind the counter. Since he had been relieved of his money by the wastelanders and Cid was nowhere in sight, the payphone was not an option.   
“Can I use that one?”  
She followed his stare to the hotel phone. “Oh, that’s not for - - uh - - guest use.”  
He kept staring at her and her cheeks turned pink and something sort of a like a giggle escaped her. “Well, maybe, for you. It’s local, right?”  
“No.” He said and reached past her for the phone. She didn’t try to stop him, just stood there, staring while he dialed the number.   
Busy signal. Damn. He stood there frowning at the phone like it was its fault. He hung it up and started again with a different number. Got three digits in and had to wrack his brain for the final numbers. The problem with having a cell with a speed dial was that you never had to remember phone numbers, even when you needed to. He punched in a likely combination and waited.  
“Yeah, What?” Barett’s deep, annoyed sounding voice barked at him through the ear piece.   
Cloud let out a breath, thankful of small miracles. “Its me. Are you guys all right?”  
There was a pause on the other end, a gathering of breath for the explosive curse that blared through the ear piece.  
“Where the hell are you? We been worrying our asses off here, and you just gettin’ around to callin’”  
“Sorry. I’ve been busy. Is Tifa okay?”  
“Tifa’s worried and she’s pissed. That okay, enough for you, Spikey?”  
“It works for me. What happened?”  
“Damned wasteland trash is what happened. Come traipsin’ in here like they own the place, busting shit up and scaring the hell out of the kids.”  
“No one was hurt?” Cloud asked hopefully.  
He got a snort over the line in response to that, then. “Bunch of bandit trash was. Kids’re okay. That snake uptown was damned interested in a downtown ruckus. Tifa went and talked with him.”  
“Who? Rufus?” Cloud tightened his grip on the phone, feeling the unease creep back in.   
“Yeah, him. So what the hell happened to you?”  
“Later. I’ve gotta go.”  
“Wait just a damned min - -”  
Cloud hung up the phone, pushed it back towards the receptionist without actually seeing her, thoughts centered around several points of growing irritation. He wasn’t sure what he was more pissed about; the wastelanders trying their luck on Tifa and thankfully Barett or Rufus ShinRa dragging Tifa more into this mess than Cloud wanted her to be. It was bad enough Cid had been attacked, threatening Tifa and the innocents who she protected just made him want to wreck some havoc of his own. It must have shown on his face, because the girl who’d been about to open her mouth, shut it, the flirty smile fading and found some papers that needed shuffling until he stalked away.   
He went outside and into the cool early morning breeze whipping in from the ocean. He stood there a moment, letting it ruffle his hair, letting it cool down his initial hot anger while he got his bearings. He hadn’t been entirely with it last night when they’d stumbled into town. He located familiar landmarks and oriented himself now. Old Costa Del Sol was where he stood. The docks were south. Where Cid and Vincent were was anyone’s guess.   
He started walking towards the docks, passing the occasional early riser or surfers hauling their big boards out to catch the morning waves. There were vendors starting to open shop and patio bistro’s serving breakfast at sidewalk tables. He realized he was hungry. Very, very hungry. The smells of breakfast brought it on and his stomach complained so vehemently that he felt momentarily lightheaded.   
The smell of cigarette smoke interfered with the tantalizing smell of frying breakfast meat and fresh bread and he encountered a bit of luck for the first time in days that didn’t encompass escaping death by the skin of his teeth.   
“Hey, kid.” Cid was sitting under the shade of an umbrella over one of the patio tables, a cup of coffee and a half eaten plate of breakfast before him.   
“You’re up early,” Cid said, beckoning and Cloud lifted a brow at the irony of that, considering how cold Cid’s bed had been.   
“What do we know?” Cloud asked, standing just outside the umbrella shade.  
“Well, for starters, there’s a buffet inside, grab a plate and fill ‘er up.”  
Cloud kept waiting until Cid waggled fingers at him and finished up the dregs of his coffee. “Eat and talk, okay. Send the waiter back with a fresh pot of coffee, while you’re at it.”  
Cloud narrowed his eyes, not liking being put off, but his stomach was in full agreement with Cid and arguing with the both of them would have been fruitless, so he stalked into the bistro and momentarily forgot his irritation at the sights and smells coming from a nicely set up little breakfast buffet. There were two or three sorts of breakfast meats, but he chose sausage grilled with peppers of varying color over eggs, with fresh toasted bread under sharp melted cheese. He got back to the table and there was a fresh cup of dark coffee waiting for him. Cid had appropriated the pot and was happily sipping his black. Cloud liked sugar and cream if he could get it, otherwise, he’d rather avoid the stuff. There was sugar and cream aplenty here, so he doctored his cup while he was eating and listened to Cid report Vincent’s findings from last night.  
“Is it here yet?” he asked between mouthfuls of sausage and egg.   
“Due in soon,” Cid said. “Vin’s down at the docks somewhere keeping an eye out.”  
Cloud figured that was about right, Vincent not being much for brightly lit, beach front breakfast bistro’s.   
“Tifa and Barett are okay,” he said. “They got hit though, the same as you.”  
“Damn.” Cid put down his cup and swore a little more, drawing attention from a disapproving woman with two kids at the next table. “This bastard’s really got it in for you, huh?”  
Cloud didn’t feel the need to answer that. It was Sephiroth’s memories and Sephiroth’s hatreds that were driving Diablo. But it wasn’t Sephiroth and that was the important thing.   
It was nice just to sit there and eat, to enjoy the flavor of food and not scarf it down like a dog fearing for its last meal. The sausage was spicy and the eggs mellow and soft. It was a good combination. Cid smoked another cigarette while Cloud concentrated on his plate.   
Cloud was pretty much done, save for wistful thoughts about the fruit bar, when Cid cocked his head, stood up and shaded his eyes, staring west towards the overcast that shrouded the inland mountains.   
“Its not heavy cargo.” Cid surmised, before anything was even visible. Cloud discerned the faint sound of engines.   
“Turbines.” Cid said, tossing the smoke on the ground and squashing it with the toe of his boot. “New ones.”   
He tossed gil onto the table and started walking towards the edge of town and the bridge that would take them to the road leading down to the docks. Cloud swallowed down the last of his cooled coffee and followed. By the time they’d crossed the bridge out of town the airship had closed the distance, coming in from the south west to avoid over-flying the town. Cid had been right. She didn’t have the big belly of a cargo ship, even though her engines looked like they could have handled the weight. She was sleek and shiny, about a third Sierra’s size.  
“New and fast.” Cid said, watching the air ship settle down towards the cleared area beyond the port. The dunes between them and it swallowed the view up then and all they could hear were powerful engines that eventually revved down and were overcome by the more commonplace sounds of ocean born traffic.   
No one looked twice at them walking the port. They belonged there was much as any of the other sailors, passengers, dock-workers, merchants or curious bystanders that were out and about this morning. Cid would have blended regardless, knowing the walk and the talk of these sorts of people. Cloud might have gotten looks otherwise. Because of the sword, because of the rips and tears and the half-healed skin under them, because he felt quarrelsome and could hardly ever hide the emotion when it came upon him, because he wasn’t quite like the rest of them, could never quite be like the rest of them and he never forgot it and sometimes people sensed the unease in him. Or maybe it was just the sword.  
They trudged past cargo in huge stacks on the docks, waiting to be transported to warehouses or picked up by merchants or loaded onto ships. There were ShinRa blues walking here and there, not nearly as many as there had been years ago before the company had taken a fall along with the rest of the world. Still, Cloud never could quite shake feeling a little nervous walking among them. Old habits.  
There was a short road between the dock proper, the stacked cargo and the airstrip. A fueling truck was bouncing along it, towards the settled airship. Cid leaned against a pallet of cargo and stared at it, tapping out another smoke as he did. There was something akin to envy in his eyes and a trace of it in his voice when he spoke.  
“Well ain’t she a sight. I didn’t know they had her operational yet.”  
Cloud watched and waited silently.   
“Mantra Ray class - - well not much a class yet, since she’s the proto-type. See those reverse flow turbines? Bastards stole that design from me - - well, maybe not so much stole since I came up with the concept back when ShinRa was footin’ the bills, but still, my basic design. I’d trade my left nut for a pair of engines like those.”  
“The bigger the engine, the better the ship?” Vincent asked and they both started, glaring up to the top of the stack of cargo where Vincent perched.   
“Goddamn it!” Cid swore. Cloud took his hand off the hilt of his sword, and wondered if Vincent found diversion in startling people who generally weren’t used to be taken unawares.   
“So,” Vincent surmised, not bothering to jump down and join them. “She seems a little large to hijack.”  
“Yeah.” Cid snorted. And more than likely she’d need more than just one one handed pilot to fly. “We could just walk up and ask to hitch a ride.”  
That sounded like a credible idea. “  
“That works for me.” Cloud nodded and started walking towards the airship.   
There was a long enough silence behind him to figure that it was taking Cid a moment to gather his wits enough to curse or complain about the course of action.   
“Wait just a damn minute . . .” Finally got sputtered out. “Son of a bitch, Cloud, you trying to get us in hot water?”  
“No.” Cloud kept walking. He heard Cid’s boots crunching on gravel behind him, and Cid’s muttered obscenities. He didn’t hear Vincent, but saw the flutter of red and glanced to his side to find him striding there silently, eyes pale amber and amused in the morning light.   
He left the gravel road and stepped onto paved airstrip. The ship’s sheen was dulled by the coat of precipitation that beaded the hull. All except for the engines which were still hot from use. There were no outright ShinRa logo’s on the hull, but there was little doubt who had built her and who operated her, especially when they got close enough to see the blues clustered around strip around her.   
“Fuck.” Cid muttered, finally lighting the smoke he’d had dangling between his lips since Vincent’s appearance. Then. “Fuck, she’s nice.”  
The blues saw them and since they didn’t look anything close to port personal, they got suspicious, threatening looks on their faces and fingered their weapons. A few of them marched up, ready to exert blue authority.  
“This is a restricted area, not for sightseeing. State your business or turn around and clear out.”  
Cloud canted his head, looking beyond the officer to the assorted muscle behind him. Six blues with various mild weaponry. Who knew how many inside the ship.   
“I said, State your business!” The officer had drawn himself up, filled with the self-righteous authority he thought his uniform and a half dozen soldiers behind him gave him. He felt Cid shift a little beside him and to the right. Vincent didn’t move at all.   
“You’re heading back to Midgar.” He didn’t phrase it as a question. The blue officer’s eyes narrowed, his lips curling up in preparation of a disdainful response.  
“Stand down, Lieutenant,” A smooth voice drifted down from the top of the boarding stair. The blue stiffened and stepped back without hesitation, though there was a faint look of disappointment behind his mask of attention.   
They looked up at a man in a tailor cut black suit. Black shirt, black tie, black glasses and slick, shoulder length black hair.   
“Fuckin’ Turks. Just what we need.” Cid grumbled.   
Not just any Turk, but Tseng, their leader, who was, if Cloud had his rathers preferable to deal with over a few other Turks he could name.   
Cloud walked to the bottom of the narrow gangway and squinted up at Tseng, he was aware of Vincent’s silent, still observation, of Cid bristling behind him at the convergence of blues that were probably more intent on seeing they didn’t start trouble than initiating violence against them.   
“We need a ride to Midgar.” He called up and Tseng almost smiled.   
“Funny you should ask. I was just having a conversation about you, Strife. Taking you to Midgar would be our pleasure.”


	8. Chapter 8

The ride back to Midgar was tense and vastly uninformative. Tseng admitted nothing more than the declaration that Rufus Shinra wanted a word with Cloud about their ‘mutual’ problem and left it at that. So there they sat, in a ship full of ShinRa Blues, watching them with unveiled suspicion and oftimes outright hostility. Apparently Blue memory was long and they held grudges as a collective, since Cloud didn’t personally recognize any of the faces of the airship contingent. Not that he necessarily would, having done a lot of damage to a lot of ShinRa property and personnel during the years after his separation from Company interests.   
So he sat there, with his sword propped against the wall next to his seat, pretending that the tension wasn’t playing with his nerves, while Vincent, to all appearances dozed across the aisle from him, and Cid wandered the ship, regardless of ShinRa suspicions, examining the mechanics of it from the inside out.   
Tseng didn’t discourage any of it, including Cid’s curiosity, and sat placidly in one of the padded bucket seats at the front of the passenger section, surreptitiously aware of everything. Cloud didn’t particularly dislike Tseng, not like Reno or some of the Turks that actively got on his last nerve. Tseng was a professional down to his bones and did his job competently and without banter. If he’d failed in a few of his missions some years back, well, it was because he had been up against insurmountable odds - - Sephiroth being an obstacle that very few people were equipped to deal with - - it was understandable. As long as he didn’t get in Cloud’s way, Cloud was prepared to co-exist with the man, but of course, co-existing with Rufus ShinRa, if there was an agenda in the works, might be more of a difficulty and Tseng was an extension of Rufus’s will.   
If Rufus was going to give him headaches in addition to the migraines that Diablo’s insanity was causing him, then there were going to be problems.   
It was dark, the day eaten away by travel, by the time they reached Midgar. The airship landed outside the city, on a relatively new airstrip cut into the dry land surrounding it. It was not exclusively a ShinRa strip, though there was little enough air traffic to utilize it that wasn’t Company oriented, so when they disembarked, they weren’t entirely at the mercy of Tseng for a ride to the city. Cid knew a few people, being one of the few independents that utilized the field, and hitched them a ride down the mile long paved road that lead to the outskirts of sector 2.   
“The president wants to talk to you,” Tseng reminded Cloud, when it was clear they were parting company.   
“I’ve got things to do first,” Cloud said and Tseng frowned, not liking the notion of anyone putting trivial, personal business above Rufus’s wants. Or maybe just not liking the idea of telling Rufus that somebody hadn’t jumped when he called.   
“Don’t be too long.”  
Cloud shrugged, not particularly caring if Rufus had to wait a day or so. Then he hesitated, needing to know what he hadn’t asked and what hadn’t been offered during the trip over. “Has he been spotted this side of the ocean?”  
Tseng damn well knew who, but he lifted a brow as if in question, and returned Cloud’s silent shrug. “Talk to the President.”  
“Informative son of bitch,” Cid muttered, when they’d started walking towards the row of warehouses and import/export offices.   
“Its doubtful he knows,” Vincent said quietly. “Even if he had Sephiroth’s unique abilities, its doubtful Diablo could have traveled here faster than we did.”  
Sephiroth’s unique abilities. Cloud shivered, clenching his teeth. He didn’t want to think about it. He wanted to think about the little niche he’d carved out for himself and considered home and more importantly the people that made it a haven, which meant heading for sector 7 without detour and finding out for himself just what had happened.  
They rode into town on the back of a delivery truck half loaded with crates bound for Big Market Square. It took them past old walls and the new construction of Sector 4 where they hopped of and made their way on foot the rest of the way. The sky was dark but the city was alive with lights in the early part of the night.   
At one point Vincent was with them and the next he was simply gone, vanished in the neon-lit shadows. Cid cursed and muttered to himself, but otherwise kept walking, pace undisturbed. It bothered Cloud more than Cid, the unexpected disappearances and appearances, but that he thought, was more because he was uncomfortable with the notion that his defenses, his innate natural instincts could be so easily bypassed.   
“You know,” Cid said, some while later, having apparently gotten over his pique. “they went after Tifa and Barret, me and technically Vincent - - I hope the little girl is okay and the cats.”  
It hadn’t occurred to Cloud to worry about Yuffie. She was as elusive as any good thief and very seldom in one place very long. Red XIII was also a less than ideal target, prowling the vastly untraversable canyons and drylands around Cosmo Canyon more than he dwelled in the company of human-kind. Cait Sith and ultimately Reeve were relatively untouchable, at least by the means Diablo had employed against his other comrades, having the not unimpressive might of the World Restoration Organization as a shield.   
It took close to an hour to reach Sector 7, what with pedestrian detours around overpass construction and the not always coherent growth of roads around places in Midgar that had been utterly decimated. Two years and they’d barely started chipping away at the worst places, but progress was being made. Another ten might see the city devoid of a lot of the signs of Meteor’s impact.   
Finally they reached familiar territory, with its more familiar class of night-life loitering on the streets. When they got to 7th Heaven the neon sign was dark and the door locked. Cloud could smell the lingering acrid scent of smoke. The facade of the bar didn’t seem to have taken smoke damage, but as his eyes wondered up and over to the adjoining warehouse/dormitory, he noted a few of the upper windows blackened with fire damage.   
Cloud had a key to the front door, but it had disappeared with his gil and anything else in his pockets, when he’d been in the desert outpost. He banged on the door for a fruitless few minutes, while Cid wandered down the street a bit, staring up at the warehouse.   
“Hey, Cloud,” he beckoned, standing under the streetlight at the corner. “There’s something going on down by your garage.”  
Indeed there was. One truck was backing into one of the unused loading dock doors next to Cloud’s little workshop, and another, more familiar one with a load of building supplies wait with lights on in the street for its turn.   
He started walking down the narrow street towards them, and somebody must have seen him, because there was an abortive beep of the horn and the driver’s door was open and Tifa was out, pelting down the street towards him. She tackled him, arms about his neck and reflexively he put hands on her back to steady them both. She smelled of sawdust and sweat, her hair in a ponytail at her neck, thick workman’s gloves on her hands, jeans and a sweatshirt in lieu of her more familiar attire.   
“Why didn’t you call sooner?” she complained against his neck.   
He didn’t get the chance to answer, because as she was loosening her hold and stepping back, he got hit from the other side by Barret’s big hand slapping him on the back, then yanking him in for a brief, if not breath-stealing embrace.  
“Yo, Cid,” Barret pushed Cloud aside and started towards Cid with a hand extended.  
“Did you see?” Tifa asked, waving a gloved hand towards the warehouse.  
“Only what was visible from out front.”  
She scowled, wiping a strand of hair back with a thick gloved finger. “It’s worse on the inside, but not widespread. The structure’s sound, thank the gods, but we’ve got a lot of work to do before we can move the kids back in. The older ones are helping out with the repair.”  
“Where are the kids?” he asked, having noted a distinct lack of them around.   
Tifa shook her head wryly. “You’re not gonna believe it. After I talked to Rufus, well he offered to help. I wouldn’t have believed it or accepted it, but the kids needed a place that wasn’t smoke clogged and he said he had the lease on a building not too far from here and offered to have cots brought in and whatnot. I couldn’t turn him down just for old times sake. I’ve got people I trust there, watching over them, but I don’t think he’s trying to pull anything this time. At least not with the kids. He also gave me a discount on supplies.” She indicated the trucks she and Barret had been driving.  
“Sounds like he’s tryin’ to butter somebody up,” Cid remarked, joining them in the company of Barret. Barret snorted, signifying his agreement on that assumption. “Guess you’ll find what the end cost of all this generosity is when you go an see the bastard, eh kid?”  
“He wants to see you?” Tifa asked, frowning.  
“Was his airship that gave us a lift ‘cross the pond in record time,” Cid said.   
“Barret said he talked to you,” Cloud said.   
“Yeah. He mostly wanted to know if you’d spoken to me about this ex-Solider - - the one that came into the bar that night. You hadn’t, so I couldn’t tell him much. He told me a few things. Are they true?”  
He was pissed enough about the attack here, the dislocation of the kids and Rufus Shinra sticking his long nose in with gifts that with ShinRa never came cheap - - that reasonably going about answering that particular question was beyond him.   
He shook his head once, an ambiguous answer at best, because gods knew what slant Rufus had put on things and he wasn’t in a place patience-wise to sit down and listen to the retelling, when what he really wanted to do was crack some heads together to work out frustration.   
He saw Tifa exchange looks with Cid past his shoulder and ignored the subtle silent communication, walking into the building instead to see for himself the range of the damage.  
The others followed him, Barret pointing out things of note. A bloodstain here, accompanied by some half dozen bullet made pits in the wall. The blackened wall there, that was the prelude to worse fire damage.   
It looked worse than it was, Barret promised and the stone retaining wall between bar and ware house had kept 7th Heaven from going up in flames. Half of the warehouse was untouched, save the lingering smell of smoke. Tifa had great plans for the repair, having every intention of taking full advantage of ShinRa’s wholesale supplies. Cloud wouldn’t have. Tifa was more pragmatic.  
They unloaded the building supplies from the trucks, and sat afterwards in the darkened bar, exchanging stories. Cid did most of the telling from the western continent side of things. Cloud slouched in his chair, drinking more than he should have, but liking the numbness that spread out in the wake of really good, hard liquor.   
It was close to dawn by the time they staggered off to find sleep. Cid was out on his feet, drink and exhaustion no good combination. Barret was better at holding his liquor, but not so good as Tifa who stayed behind to clean up the glasses and throw the empty bottles away.   
“I was worried. I’m glad you’re okay,” she said softly, after the others had climbed the stairs and he hadn’t quite gotten there yet.   
Cloud paused, not knowing how to express the fear he’d experienced at the dead phone line at 7th Heaven, backed up by Diablo’s taunts. Not knowing if he even wanted to, because vulnerability came with voicing those feelings. And pain maybe, for the both of them, if he couldn’t live up to what Tifa wanted him to be.   
“Yeah, me too,” he said and climbed the stairs to his room above the bar.   
The fire hadn’t touched it, but it smelled of smoke. The window had already been opened and even the dubiously fresh air of sector 7 wasn’t up to dissipating the acrid smoke-smell so soon. Other than the open window, everything was as he’d left it. Clutter around the desk which served as the administrative center for Strife Delivery service. Bike parts that he had taken up to work on up here when the weather got too cold for comfortable work in the garage. Bits and pieces of broken armor and leather belts and buckles. Laundry that had been washed, but not folded and still lay in the basket. It would have to be rewashed to get the smoke smell out. He pulled off his gloves and unbuckled his shoulder guard, laying them on top of the pile of paper on the desk.   
He sat down on his narrow bed and contemplated pulling boots off and stripping out of clothes to lie in his own bed, comfortable in the illusion of safety, save for the fact that this place had been attacked a few days prior with no regard to the sanctity of home.   
He sat for a long time, watching the darkness began to pale outside his window, true night fleeing with dawn on its heels. He wondered if Rufus was up. If the man wanted to see him bad enough, he’d make the effort.  
He grabbed his sword and crept down the hall, avoiding the squeaky spots in the floorboards. Tifa’s door was closed. The kid’s rooms were empty, even though they’d been untouched by fire. There were still bloodstains on the walls and Tifa liked to shield them from what she could, even though none of them, even the youngest were innocent of the impact of death. Not after Meteor and Geostigma.   
He used the phone behind the bar to let them know he was on his way, and got a cranky reply about the hour. He ignored it and hung up. Got Tifa’s keys from the cash register and went out to the old truck. He slid his sword into the passenger side seat, and was about to circle around and get in the driver’s side when Vincent melted out of the pre-dawn haze.  
“You’re going alone?”  
Cloud took a moment to catch his breath, giving Vincent a surly look. “I wish you wouldn’t do that.”   
Vincent lifted a brow, no doubt having heard it in crasser terms a hundred times before from Cid.   
“Yeah, I’m going alone.”  
“I have a bad feeling.”  
“Yeah, well, Rufus and his thugs don’t worry me. And I want him off my back without involving anyone else.”  
“You’re bothered that he spoke to Tifa.”  
“I’m bothered. This is his fault in the long run. His mess to clean up. I don’t want him thinking he can involve me by dragging my friends into it.”  
“Diablo seems to think the same thing.”  
“Yeah, well, fuck Diablo.”  
“Ummm.” Vincent’s metal hand was on the car door, preventing Cloud from opening it. He put the other hand, the flesh and blood one on the side view mirror, effectively boxing Cloud in. “You feared Sephiroth, but you never ran from him. With this man, you want to pretend the threat does not exist and turn away.”   
Cloud took a shaky breath, wanting to push past, but frozen in place. He wanted to blurt out that Vincent had no idea what he was talking about, but Vincent very rarely spoke unless there was meaning to what he said. And Vincent nearly always hit at the heart of the matter.   
“Cid’s upstairs,” Cloud said, to divert attention.  
“I know.”  
“He’s dead drunk.”  
“Yes.”  
“I’ve gotta go.”  
“Why does this fear you have now transcend the one Sephiroth inspired?”  
God, where was Vincent’s silent, accommodating nature when you really wanted it. He looked away, down the shadowy street with its street lamps fading with oncoming dawn. Vincent’s fingers touched his face, a gentle, irresistible touch that forced his gaze back where Vincent wanted it. He shivered, fighting the desire to melt into that elusive touch. - - if Cid hadn’t been upstairs, if Tifa hadn’t, Cloud would have liked nothing better than to forget Rufus for the moment and go upstairs and wrap himself in Vincent’s calm and just forget.   
It couldn’t be. Even if Vincent hadn’t been otherwise engaged, Cloud didn’t like the idea of a habit forming, of using Vincent as a crutch when the world became too much to deal with on his own. When the nightscares came out of the darkness to harass him he damn well needed to fend them off on his own.   
“I’m aware - - of my problem,” Cloud admitted softly, pressing his cheek for a brief moment into the cup of Vincent’s cool hand, then pulling back with a sigh. “I don’t think sharing it, at least right now, is really going to make that much of a difference. Let me go work out some of my frustrations by waking Rufus up at the crack of dawn, then maybe when I come back, I’ll have my head on a little straighter.”  
Vincent lifted a dubious brow, but inclined his head in assent and stepped back, allowing Cloud access to the truck.   
The streets were near deserted, only the earliest of the early workers starting to stir or late shifters wearily plodding home. Vehicular traffic was almost nil, so Cloud made good time uptown. He pulled up to the new high-rise that was the unofficial headquarters of ShinRa Corp.   
He got out, taking his sword with him, and looked up at the impressive facade with its set of glass caged elevators and its multitude of tinted windows.   
“Don’t leave that piece of junk sitting on the curb. It spoils the aesthetics of the architecture.”  
Cloud lowered his glance to the doors fronting the lobby and narrowed his eyes somewhat as Reno proceeded a set of black suited Turks out of the revolving glass doors. Rude followed through the regular door.   
Cloud tossed the keys and Reno caught them reflexively. He smirked then flipped them back to one of the younger Turks to valet to an appropriate spot. Reno made a little sweeping bow and indicated with a swish of the hand for Cloud to enter the lobby.   
They crossed towards an interior elevator bank, just Reno and Rude at his back.  
“You’re not taking weapons up into the boss’s private suite,” Reno informed him unequivocally.  
“I’m not going unarmed,” Cloud said with just as little doubt.  
“Are you ever really unarmed?”  
Cloud canted his head, considering. Well, as long as Reno know it. He shrugged and handed the blade to Rude, ignoring Reno.   
“If I don’t get it back I will tear this place apart.”  
“You’ll get it back,” Rude said simply, lifting a dark brow behind his shades at the apparent weight of the thing. He went and put it on the shining top of the security desk, then returned to Reno and Cloud. The doors opened and they got in Reno opened a panel and punched in a security code, and the elevator started its smooth assent to the top.   
The doors opened onto a suite that screamed restrained wealth and elegant simplicity. A wall of windows looked out over a city that the gleaming touch of the rising sun’s rays made look deceptively shiny and new.   
Rufus Shinra stood waiting, neither seeming sleep-tousled or annoyed at the early morning call. Which lack annoyed Cloud.   
“Welcome. Sorry about the tight security, but well, you know the reasons.”  
Cloud frowned, not particularly feeling up for pleasantries. “Cut to the chase, Rufus. What do you want?”  
He took a step into the foyer, while Reno and Rude fixed themselves into place by the elevator doors. Rufus urged him deeper into the room, smiling as though Cloud’s appearance had made his day complete.   
“I thought you wanted to see me. You called for an appointment . . .?”  
“Don’t play with me. I’ve had a bad week. What do you want?”  
Rufus sighed, approaching Cloud with only a barely noticeable limp in his stride. He probably could have walked without the aide of the cane, but Cloud supposed he liked to make statements.   
“We have a mutual problem. This ex-soldier Diablo is a threat to us all. It seems perfectly clear that we need to pool our resources. He’s already proven a regrettable interest in you, so it seems only reasonable to play on that and use it to our advantage.”  
Cloud almost laughed. Almost. “To your advantage, you mean? If that’s all you wanted, then you’ve wasted your time. You created the problem. You deal with it!”  
Rufus sighed again, putting on the face of a long suffering man. “Don’t be naive, Cloud. You know what he is.”  
“I know what you made him and how!” Cloud snapped, starting to feel self-righteous because the sad thing was he did know how, intimately. And how could he completely despise Diablo for falling to madness because of it when he’d done the same thing himself.   
Rufus went to the bar along the wall and studied the various crystal decanters there, chose one and poured himself a drink, then filled another glass and extended it to Cloud. “Just calm down. Have a drink.”  
“I don’t want a drink,” Cloud snapped, but he took the glass reflexively, fine booze spilling over onto his hand as he gestured. “I want you to mind your business and let me mind mine!”  
Rufus sipped, taking the time to appreciate the flavor of the liquor, then calmly said. “But you are my business, Cloud, because the one thing this Diablo seems to want more than vengeance against ShinRa corp. and me, is you. And we both know why.”  
Cloud looked away, not wanting to discuss the whys and wherefores of that in hostile company. Hell, he didn’t want to discuss it among friends. It made his heart beat a little faster thinking about it, a fine perspiration crawling over his skin.   
“He’s just an crazy ex-Soldier,” he muttered. “Without Jenova cells, Sephiroth is just a bug in his head. You’ve got plenty of muscle, if he comes your way, deal with it.”  
“You fool!” Rufus put his own glass down with some force upon the bar top and faced Cloud with narrow, frustrated eyes. “He doesn’t need Jenova’s cells to make the transformation. He was one of the first. Do you understand? They injected more than enough of the damned raw material into him to start with for Sephiroth’s needs.”  
God, Cloud could feel the thud of his heart in his throat. It was disconcerting. It interfered with his righteous anger. With his thinking. “Then why hasn’t he taken over?”   
“Why do you think? Your guess is as good as mine. Probably better, all things considered.”  
“I don’t - -” his head was swimming. Thoughts crowding together and rebounding into nonsense. His skin felt hot, sensitive - - numb at the same time.   
“You don’t look so good, Cloud.” Rufus was a wavering figure in white before him. His voice echoed as if from down a long tunnel, he reached out and took the tumbler Cloud was about to drip from numb fingers. “Let me take that.”  
And that was it. That last grasp on solid reality before he was sliding down a dizzying tube that never seemed to end. He didn’t feel the impact with the floor. Couldn’t piece together the faint buzz of voice sounds above him. He felt the need to vomit, but that was short lived, dissipating as complete and utter darkness took over. 

Reno stepped forward, not quite sure what had just happened. Rude was on his heels, the both of them quiet, soft on the boss’s thick rug. Cloud was a dark-swathed sprawl of limbs against the crisp white of the carpet. Completely limp, utterly dead to the world. Reno couldn’t quite grasp how the boss had accomplished it, if the boss had had a hand in it at all.  
“Uh, boss - -?” he started.  
Rufus waved an impatient hand, putting the glass down on the coffee table and straightening. “One way or another, he’s going to be of use to me with this Diablo thing.” He slammed the butt of his cane onto the carpet, and it made a muffled thump. Not happy then, but whatever he’d done, he had to have planned it from the get go - - hadn’t he?   
“Put him there.” Rufus indicated the long white couch. Reno and Rude obligingly picked Cloud up, Reno at his feet, Rude under his shoulders and dumped him on the couch.   
“Careful,” Rufus warned. “He’s got value as a bargaining chip that can’t be replaced. Treat him like fine porcelain.”  
Yeah, whatever, Reno though with a silent snort. More like the bull in the fine porcelain shop.   
“I don’t get it, boss. How’d you do it. He didn’t drink.” He reached for the mostly full glass Rufus had taken from Cloud.  
“I wouldn’t touch that glass if I were you,” Rufus suggested offhandedly. “Not unless you want a long nap.”  
Reno snatched his hand back. “Oh. Ohhhh! How long’s he gonna be out?” Asking how the boss had did it, and not managed to drug himself in the process would have been a waste of breath. Rufus didn’t seem to be in an explaining mood.  
“12 hours or a stim shot, whichever comes first. One of you needs to check in with Tseng. He’ll update you. The other watch over him, just in case.”  
“Me. Me!” Reno just avoided shooting his hand up like an overeager school boy. “I’ll take Cloud.”  
Rufus nodded, thoughts elsewhere already, cell phone to his ear as he strode towards the elevators. Rude gave him a grimmer stare, wary suspicion on a normally unperturbable face.   
“Just be careful.” Rude muttered and Reno grinned at him, settling down on the sofa arm next to Cloud’s head.   
“How careful do I have to be? He’s out like a light, buddy. Unless that crazy ex-Soldier shows up here, we’ll have a nice, peaceful morning.”  
Rude’s frown deepened, but he didn’t push it, turning on his heel and following Rufus to the elevator. 

 

“Cid, wake up.”  
Cid swatted at the hand at his shoulder, grumbling unappreciative things under his breath.   
“Cid.” The hand was insistent.   
Cid muttered one last foul epitaph and pried his eyes open. There was sunlight coming in through the slats of mostly closed blinds. The sounds of a city alive wafted in with it, through the open window beyond the shades. He rubbed sleep crusted eyes and glared balefully up at Vincent. God his head hurt, thanks to all the booze last night. But damn it, a man had to keep up with a slip of a girl if his pride had anything to say about it and that girl could drink. He hardly recalled staggering to bed. He must have been in one of the kid’s rooms, because the bed was short enough that his legs hung over the end.  
“What?”   
“Cloud hasn’t come back, yet.”  
Cid blinked, brain not working well enough yet to connect whatever dots Vincent was spinning. He stared bleakly at Vincent’s pale face and after a moment of silence Vincent let out a breath of frustration and expounded.  
“Cloud went to meet with Shinra very early this morning. He isn’t back.”  
“Why’d he - - when the hell - - aw, shit, how long?”  
Vincent shrugged, looking at the intensity of the light coming in through the window slats. “5 perhaps 6 hours ago.”  
“Well fuck. And you’re just starting to worry?” Cid pushed himself up and had to take a moment as his world reeled sickeningly.   
“I was otherwise occupied,” Vincent said simply. “I only returned recently and the lot of you it seems, were sleeping in and failed to notice.”  
Cid groaned, clutching his head, figuring that Barret and probably Tifa as well were still in the throes of booze induced slumber. Damn Cloud anyways, for not staggering up to his room and passing out like the rest of them. What the hell had the kid been thinking taking off at the ass-crack of dawn to Rufus Shinra of all folks?   
“Well, Damnit, let’s go wake the girl. She’ll have something to say ‘bout this for damn sure, and let me tell you my head’s not up to female screeching.”  
“Tifa doesn’t screech,” Vincent said softly. “But she will be concerned.”


	9. Chapter 9

“Hospital complex?! What do you mean he’s at the hospital complex?” Tifa’s voice rose dangerously and Cid winced, sourly wishing Vincent was within hearing range for him to disabuse him of the notion that Tifa Lockhart didn’t screech. She damn sure sounded like she was getting close to it, at least to Cid’s oversensitive ears.   
Rufus Shinra, sitting placidly behind his big, shiny-topped desk gave her a sympathetic smile. “Apparently he had taken some serious injury during the last few days. What looked like a sword wound in the side, I believe the medics said. I believe the word infection and internal bleeding was mentioned. He was taken to the new hospital complex in this sector. I’ll have someone escort you there immediately, but he may still be in recovery. They had to go in to repair the damage. The doctors can give you the details.”  
Tifa glowered, hands clenched into tight little fists at her side. Neither she nor Cid were armed, and probably just as well from her look. Tseng stood behind Rufus’s chair, stone-faced and ready to move to protect his boss at the slighted wrong flinch on their part. No doubt he was armed to the teeth under that expensive black suit.   
“If all this happened hours ago,” Tifa said dangerously, voice gone back to low and controlled. “Why didn’t you bother to call and let us know?”  
Rufus canted his head, every strand of silver blonde hair perfectly in place save for one unruly lock that curled over his left brow. He shrugged.   
“I did try. Your phone is out of service.”  
Tifa opened her mouth. Shut it, caught off her balance by that pertinent fact. “Yeah, well - - the fire - -” she shut up, biting her lip, anger fading in the path of worry.   
“I assure you, I take Cloud’s welfare very seriously, especially in the face of the mutual problem we face,” Rufus said. “Let me have someone take you to the hospital.”  
“We have our own ride,” Cid said, taking Tifa’s elbow and urging her away from the desk and the serpent behind it. “You just make sure we don’t run into trouble when we get there, hear?”  
Rufus shrugged, inclining his head. “Whatever I can do to help, my resources are at your disposal.”  
“Yeah. Sure.” Cid would believe that when it jumped up and bit him on the ass.   
They got the elevators and rode down, all Tifa’s bravado gone now, her face pale and her mouth clenched tight.   
“Kid’ll be fine,” Cid assured her. “You an’ me both know he’s tough as nails.”  
“Did he have a wound like that? Like what Rufus said?”  
Cid shrugged, feeling that momentary urge to protect the female of the species from worry, before he remembered that Tifa had seen more than her fair share of pain and suffering. She was no wilting flower, this girl.   
“Yeah, he had a bad one, through and through on his side. Guess it could have gone bad on him, as much traipsing around as we been doing. He didn’t complain about it - - but you know him.”  
“Yeah, I know him.”   
They got to the lobby and got a relieved look from the big-shouldered Turk behind the reception desk. Vincent had chosen not to be parted in unknown territory from his guns. He leaned against the wall between reception desk and elevator bank, with very little showing of his face, but the red-orange glimmer of his eyes and a hair-trigger air of danger so strong that even Cid felt it. Vincent wasn’t happy about standing here in this bright lit lobby, he wasn’t happy about Cloud gone missing and there wasn’t a soul who passed by that didn’t feel it. No wonder the muscle behind the counter was sweating.  
Cid’s lance was leaning on the wall next to Vincent, he retrieved it and leaned his head close enough to quietly share the details of what they’d learned. Vincent frowned, brows gathering, but didn’t comment, pushing himself off the wall and following Tifa with a swirl of cloak and purpose to his stride. Cid shook his head, figuring that any obstacle they did encounter between them and Cloud would likely be in a shit-heap of pain before all was said and done.   
The hospital complex was in the same sector and not far, a spanking new building full of marble and gleaming glass that the folks in the poorer sections of Midgar would probably never get to see the likes of in their bleak neighborhoods. There was security at the door, ready to toss out the riff raff, that might have given them trouble save that a couple of Turks stepped in to intervene.   
Rude and Reno skulked out of the air-conditioned interior and gave the okay sign, and the guards stepped back and paid them no more heed, not even wondering what sort of artillery was hidden beneath Vincent’s cloak.   
“We even start to suspect you guys had anything to do with this . . .” Cid glowered at the two Turks striding behind them down the wide white hall towards recovery.   
“We been taking real good care of him,” Reno said with that same smirk Reno always wore that made a man doubt whether he was being honest or sarcastic with hidden meanings about things you could only guess at.   
“Made him my personal responsibility,” Reno kept up and Rude gave him a brief, dark glower, which the smaller man seemed not to notice. “Y’know, getting him here, making sure the best of the best saw to him.”  
“Yeah, you’re a real saint,” Cid muttered.   
The stark clean of the place bothered Cid. The echo of their boots in the hallway did, when the staff all padded around silently in soft-soled shoes. They stood out plainly as strangers here, even the two Turks, interlopers among the healers, with their stained clothing, awash with color and darkness amidst the white, white, white. He wondered what they’d do if they saw real pain, if some poor sod broke the code and spattered bright red blood across the pristine floor.   
Recovery was a wardroom with a central nursing station that could monitor the patients. There were three beds on either side, and only one of them held a body. Cloud, still and pale under crisp white sheets, wires hooked up to his arm running to a machine that blipped steadily with his heartbeat. Tifa stopped a few feet from the bed, face white, but Vincent walked right up, staring balefully at the machine, before pulling the sheet down and revealing a big square of thick clean bandages on Cloud’s side where the worst of his wounds had been, already soaked through a little in the center with red.   
“He’s an extraordinarily lucky young man,” A doctor said, coming from an office at the far end of the room. “The initial wound alone would have killed most people within hours unchecked. The fact that he’s been on his feet for some four days with it is frankly one for the books.” The man smiled, that fake patronizing smile of a medical man that had been in the business too long and had lost the heart for it he might once have had.   
Cid didn’t like him. Vincent didn’t even look at him, standing over Cloud with the fingertips of his real hand on the skin of Cloud’s side at the edge of the bandage.   
“When can we take him home?” Tifa asked from behind Cid, voice a little shaky.  
The doctor transferred the smile to her, moving around Cid’s glower and Vincent’s silent lack of attention to stand by her, patting her on her shoulder in a fatherly fashion that made Cid’s skin crawl, but Tifa didn’t seem to take issue with. “We’ll see. I’d like him stationary for a day or two, so all our hard work stitching him up on the inside doesn’t go to waste.”  
“Okay.” Tifa nodded.   
“Yeah, good luck.” Cid muttered. “Once he’s up, he won’t be staying put.”  
“He’s got a point.” Tifa said, flicking her eyes nervously to Cloud. “He doesn’t always use good sense when it comes to taking care of himself.”  
“Not to worry.” The doctor assured her. “A little sedation in the pain-killers for the next few days and he’ll be content.”  
Tifa nodded, not having a problem with the notion of drugging Cloud into complacency. Vincent looked up for the first time, a flash of a frown, eyes flicking around the features of the room, the high window on one side, the two nurses at the station, the Turks standing sedately behind them. Then without a word, he turned on his heel and strode out, Rude stepping quickly out of his path to make way.   
“Can I stay here with him?” Tifa asked as Cid watched Vincent’s retreat.  
“Certainly.” The doctor patted her hand. “Visitors usually aren’t allowed in recovery, but I think we can make an exception for one of you for a few hours. Nurse Gentry can tell you normal visiting hours . . .”  
“Cid?”   
He tore his eyes off the route of Vincent’s escape and looked back to Tifa. “Yeah, sure. You call Barrett if you need us. We’ll be back at the bar, I guess.”  
She nodded gratefully and Cid left her to it, giving the Turks one last warning look that didn’t have the impact it could have if Vincent had been there to back him up, then heading for the exit, hoping that Vincent hadn’t decided to simply disappear for the duration. 

 

“So, what d’ya think?”   
Vincent didn’t even shrug in response, until Cid caught his arm and interfered with his progress towards the door.   
“I dislike it.”   
“Yeah well - -“ What did you say to that, that wasn’t stating the obvious painfully. So instead he asked, “You riding back with me, or what?”  
He did get a shrug for that at the curb outside the hospital lobby. The truck was parked across the street in a four level parking garage.   
“Could use the company. Case I get turned around in this rat maze of a city.”  
That decided Vincent. He nodded, and started across the street with Cid on his heels. It was nice and dark and cool under all the concrete and steel of the deck and Cid could almost feel Vincent start to relax, out of the fluorescents and the sunlight.   
“The kid ain’t got a lot of sense, y’know, S’far as taking care of himself goes. I told him he needed to slow down, to take a breather and heal, but who ever listens to me?”  
“I listen. He didn’t smell of blood. Before.”   
Cid lifted a brow and Vincent frowned and expounded. “The scent of the walking wounded is . . . unique. Of blood where it . . . shouldn’t be.”  
“Even on the inside?” Cid shuddered a little, marginally creeped out by this line of conversation. Not as much as he would have been a few years ago before he’d become familiar with the darker side of Vincent’s reality.   
Vincent shrugged again.   
“Perhaps not. I don’t know. I don’t like him there.”  
“Yeah, well, soon’s he wakes up, we’ll haul him outta there.”  
Vincent didn’t have a reply to that. Just got into the passenger side of the truck and sat there broodingly while Cid maneuvered out of the parking garage. 

 

“The girl’s with him,” Reno reported. “The doc gave them this whole spiel about how lucky Strife was and how much work they did to repair the damage and other bullshit like that. They bought it. They even went along with the idea of drugging him to keep him quiet for the next few days. The dupes.”  
“Valentine didn’t seem happy,” Rude said.  
“Valentine never seems anything but morose,” Reno shrugged.   
“Excellent. You two keep an eye on Cloud and keep me apprised.” Rufus steepled his fingers, lightly resting his chin on the edge of finely manicured forefingers.  
He wasn’t paying them a great deal of attention, thoughts gone elsewhere on things that he might or might not decide to share with them. He had a plan, parts of which he hadn’t revealed to all of his functionaries, of that Reno was certain. Maybe Tseng knew, being the boss’s number one go to guy, but Reno and Rude were dealing with a lot of shadowy places, getting a lot of orders on the fly and scrambling to carry them out.   
Research and development was scrambling, that much Reno knew. ShinRa’s number one science guru, since the death of the not entirely sane Hojo was a guy named Stark, and he’d been having a lot of meetings with the boss the last few days. Reno had heard the words Genova element mentioned more than once. It was no comfortable notion, the boss delving into that mess again. Reno would be the last one to disparage the boss’s common sense - - well, maybe not the last - - maybe all it took would be a drink or two and he’d speak his mind without hesitation - - but you’d think Rufus would have learned his lesson. But he’d been up to something with the lab guys ever since the Kadaj thing and Sephiroth’s brief resurrection. Granted, if he was up to something with the pieces of Genova that for all intents of purposes the rest of the world thought didn’t exist, he had to keep it secret, because ShinRa wasn’t the all powerful final word on things anymore and they had to be careful of watchdog organizations like the World Restoration Organization getting wind of potentially threatening projects.   
Frankly it scared the shit out of Reno, the not knowing exactly what was coming more so than anything else. If you were gonna deal with Genova enhanced super freaks then you damn well ought to know the details.   
“Boss,” Reno offered, more because he needed to voice the affirmation for himself than ease Rufus’s worries. “he’s just one guy, no matter what his DNA’s spliced with. We’ve taken out super soldiers before. We’ve got the firepower. We spatter his brains before Sephiroth gets the chance to use him and problem solved.”  
Rufus canted his head, eyes narrowed speculatively, mouth set in a grim line of determination. “No. That would be a problem. If this Diablo’s alive, then we know where Sephiroth’s influence is, he doesn’t move on to find another likely channel back into this world.”  
“And that’s a good thing?”  
“That’s a very good thing. Because when Sephiroth breaches the barrier and I need him to breach the barrier, I want to know where he is when it happens. “   
Reno didn’t like the sound of that. It sent shivers of foreboding up his spine and he wasn’t a man who generally fell prey to pre-combat jitters or misgivings about little things like going up against insurmountable odds. He didn’t cast a look at Rude, because Rude would never, ever let anything slip in front of the boss. Later, the two of them would talk over this insanity, maybe get a little drunk if time allowed, but end all, they’d do what the boss needed doing or die trying. It was the job.   
For the time being, they had Cloud to baby-sit, even if he was under their thumb right securely at the moment. Tifa wouldn’t be a problem. Tifa had seen too many friends die to take chances with the ones she had left. All they had to do was have the doctors arrange a little show, come up with a complication or two and she’d fight tooth and nail to keep Cloud right where he was. Which was where they wanted him, unconscious and docile being the only way to truly control Cloud until the time came when the boss needed him functional and dangerous again. Or for whatever else the boss had in mind to use him for and knowing the convoluted way the boss’s mind worked, only God knew what that might be, because Reno didn’t have a clue. 

Cid caught hold of a dubious handhold and pulled himself up to the precarious outcropping of beam that Vincent occupied. Damned if he had a fear of heights. He was more comfortable in the sky than on the earth, but there was a big damn difference between having a good aircraft around you and sitting out on a naked beam high up on a burgeoning section of new city construction. He looked down from where he clung and saw nothing but the black skeletal silhouette of a high-rise in the process of being built, all beams and girders and unfinished floors that bled down into darkness fifteen stories down.   
He shook his head and cursed softly, wondering what madness had overtaken him to attempt this just for a slice of Vincent’s company. It was a big enough beam, one of the foundation pieces that was a good four feet wide and sturdy as the earth when you got right down to it, but the wind up here was gusty and the blinking lights of Midgar that sparkled out at them from the shadowy haze of a nighttime city gave his usually infallible equilibrium a run for its money.   
There were higher places still, more treacherous perches that Vincent could have used for sure and been comfortable on, but he’d come down a bit when Cid had started coming up and that was a kindness that Cid deeply appreciated, not as limber as he used to be. Hell, he’d never been that limber, even in his misspent youth, but then, he didn’t have any extra additives boosting the flexibility of his body.   
“Quiet up here,” he said, because it was, the sounds of city swallowed up by the heights and well, because Vincent was sitting there watching him, all shadows in the dark and unreadable.   
They were near the edge of the city, right at the wall that used to run all the way around Midgar, but now only remained in places, being one of the causalities of Meteor that had not been top priority to rebuild. There was a lot of flat dry land out there. A lot of grass land beyond that that had never been much good for farming. There was a small range of mountains to the northwest, but here on the southeast side of the city, you couldn’t see them, even from this height. All that was visible out there at this angle was dryland and even that was one big dark blur. The sky was nice though and he figured that was what Vincent was contemplating. Vast and spotted with stars. Cid could understand the draw of that.   
He sat down next to Vincent and dangled one leg off the edge of the beam, trying to be casual about it,   
“Cloud?” Vincent asked and Cid shrugged.   
“Stable, Tifa says. They chased her out after visiting hours. Only reason she let then, I think, is that she had the kids to check on.   
“Unnn.” There was disapproval in Vincent’s tone, even though he didn’t voice complaint. He’d had his say once and was not prone to repeating himself. He didn’t like Cloud in a ShinRa facility. He was worried and he was protective and that halfway made Cid a little jealous, but he figured that Vincent would be just as anxious over him, more so maybe, and forced that emotion back. Vincent had a soft spot for Cloud and that was just the way it was and he’d been okay with it for years so no reason to get sensitive now, when the kid was busted up.   
“It don’t make sense to me, Rufus aiming to double deal us now. Not with the shit-load of trouble likely on its way to do him damage. Seems to me he’d want to take lengths to see Cloud safe and sound, all things considered.”  
“It would seem that way,” Vincent said quietly with that sort of tone in his voice that held more skepticism than agreement.   
Cid gave him a look, trying to make out his eyes in the darkness. “You feeling this way ‘cause of old times sake or is it something else?”  
Vincent sat silent for a long while, then his shoulders moved in a shrug. “A little of both. Perhaps I’m biased.”  
“You got reason.”  
Vincent didn’t have a reply to that, just sat there closer to the edge than Cid wanted to get, one foot dangling, the other propped up on the edge of the beam. Vincent was remembering things that hurt, reliving painful experiences and guilts that just wouldn’t go away. Maybe that’s what he did all the times he went off alone to be by himself. Torture himself with memories because he felt it was just payment for perceived past sins.   
Cid didn’t like it, but there wasn’t a whole hell of a lot he could do about it, save maybe the physical stuff, and this wasn’t exactly the place for it. He draped an arm across Vincent’s shoulder regardless, hooking his elbow about his neck and drawing him back a little to lean against Cid’s shoulder. Vincent let him, still silent, still focused on inner things. Cid shut his eyes and inhaled the scent of Vincent’s hair, felt the silk soft tickle of it on his cheek and thought about getting Vincent someplace more conducive to physical interaction. Someplace not likely to get a man killed by falling off a beam fifteen stories up.   
“Cid,” Vincent said, very softly and Cid murmured something on an inhale, a vague question to that query, more interested in Vincent’s hair and the solid feel of his body under the cloak. “Hmm?”  
“I think he’s here.”  
“Huh?” Cid lifted his face and followed the path of Vincent’s gaze out into the darkness of the drylands beyond the city. In the distant darkness there were the tiny pinpoints of light. Dozens of them, maybe hundreds of headlights cutting through the night, coming from a direction that no honest convoy would travel, heading towards Midgar. 

 

“They’re out there.” Tseng said, no doubt repeating the information for Reno’s benefit as he strode into the Boss’s office after a quick summons from Cloud-sitting detail. He didn’t need to ask who, knowing who Tseng had been on the lookout for. Reno felt a little tingle of anticipation. That adrenaline rush that always came with the foreknowledge of action.   
The door to the boss’s office was open, and Dr. Stark was leaning over Rufus’s desk, pointing out something in a thick file. The boss was listening, concentration marring his brow, nodding here and there as the doc made this point or that. Reno couldn’t hear what was being said. Tseng didn’t seem to care, standing there waiting patiently for the doc to finish up.   
“How far?” Reno asked softly, the silence eating at him.   
Tseng didn’t glance his way, but he answered, just as softly. “Three miles out. Southeast. We estimate a hundred vehicles. They’ve stopped. Waiting.”  
“Waiting for what”  
Tseng shrugged, not having that answer. Not bothering to speculate.   
The doctor straightened up, nervous-like and who wouldn’t be, dealing with the stuff he was and breezed out of the boss’s office, not taking note of Reno and Tseng at all, preoccupied and mumbling to himself. Rufus beckoned without looking up, fingertips grazing the still open folder before him. Tseng marched in, and stopped before the desk and Reno sauntered after, on edge. Eventually Rufus looked up and met Tseng’s eyes.  
“It’s a go. Assemble your backup and proceed as planned.”  
Tseng nodded, turning on his heel and gesturing for Reno to follow with a sharp jerk of his jaw. Reno did out of reflex, casting the boss one wary glance as he left, feeling very much an outsider in this.   
“What’s a go?” he asked, in the hall outside the office, out of the boss’s hearing. He had a right to know, if he was going to get his ass shot up over it. “What in hell has the boss got planned?”   
“We’re going to extend an invitation,” Tseng said. “For a face to face meeting between the president and ex-Soldier Diablo.”  
Reno faltered a step, not prepared for that. Damn sure not prepared for that. He opened his mouth. Shut it, half convinced that he didn’t want to know the details.  
“Just you and me?”   
“And a strike squad at our backs. Discreetly.”  
Discreetly. Meaning under cover and far enough away not to raise alarm, but close enough to get there in time to wipe up the bloodstains of two unfortunate Turks who miscalculated the appeal of their boss’s offer to a lunatic ex-super-soldier, black ops assassin. Fantastic.  
He wondered dryly what twist of fate had landed him the distinction of accompanying Tseng on this fool’s errand instead of Tseng’s usual partner, Elena. Maybe Tseng simply valued Elena too highly to risk her neck in a suicide mission. He imaged Elena wasn’t too happy about that decision, unless she was occupied with some other vital job for the boss and distracted.   
He shut his mouth and followed, thinking about things the boss had let slip, and things the boss had wanted done since Diablo had shown up, gunning for Cloud. The boss couldn’t be fool enough to think he could reach some agreement with the man. You didn’t deal with crazy people and expect them to keep to deals. You didn’t deal with men you’d been trying to hunt down for elimination for years. You wiped them off the face of the planet and that was that. Problem solved.   
But then, the boss never did anything without some sort of angle planned, without some sort of face card up his sleeve. And what did they have that might make even a crazy man hesitate and think about parlay? That might make a man infused with the spirit of an even bigger lunatic take pause?   
Cloud. The one threat that they knew for a fact Sephiroth would be wary of, the initial target of Diablo’s reemergence into the public eye. The boss didn’t want Cloud kept in stasis to use as a backup if Diablo got past their defenses, he wanted Cloud as a bargaining chip to use to get the bastard’s attention. A present to garner something akin to trust or good will. And here they were, off to broker the deal.   
Damned if the boss wasn’t playing high-stakes. If he miscalculated, if things fouled up, they’d have more than Diablo breathing down their necks. 

 

Cloud came awake by sluggish degrees. Just a vague awareness of body at first, a hazy contemplation of lethargic muscles and sickening movement beyond his control. He heard, through what seemed a thick filter, the distant murmur of voices, the slap slap of footpads on a floor, the squeak of wheels. Survival instinct won out over the lethargy and he forced heavy eyelids open and gazed up at the passing squares of fluorescents on a white tiled ceiling. He was on his back, on a gurney maybe, being moved with some haste.   
He didn’t understand it. Couldn’t put the facts together to figure out what he was doing here. Couldn’t easily recall what he’d been doing last. Just a big, gaping hole in his memory that refused to clarify.   
“Damn it, he’s awake,” somebody said and a hand caught at his right arm, turning it vein side up and placed the tip of a needle against his skin.   
Adrenalin kicked in. Panic. He lifted his other hand, grabbing the white-sleeved hand that held the needle. It seemed to take forever, reflexes dulled, but he was still fast enough to snag that hand before the needle could do more than prick his skin. But then a big hand caught his wrist from the other side, squeezing hard enough to make him loosen his grip.   
He could barely focus past the immediate, past the blurring white walls and the waist level view of bodies, but the fingers held strength and were callused, not smooth and soft and unweathered like the touch of medical personal. He didn’t have the strength to fight it, when his arm was forced down, didn’t have the strength to protest further as the needle pierced his skin and sent whatever it held into his bloodstream. He went down again, fighting it, refusing to succumb to the inevitable until it washed over him and dragged him into blackness.


	10. Chapter 10

Reno was highly confident of his own abilities, truly he was. He was skilled at what he did, fast, durable and had the ability to think lightening fast on his feet. He had every bit as much confidence in Tseng. But walking into what they were walking into, even armed to the teeth, with body armor on under their suits - - well, it was simply suicidal. He wished it were Rude at his side instead of Tseng, because even though he knew Tseng was a force to reckon with, he didn’t know Tseng’s moves like the back of his hand and didn’t trust Tseng to know his almost the moment he did.   
They rode out in one of the company trucks, a big, black all terrain vehicle with tinted, bulletproof windows and armor plating beneath shiny paint job. All of which wouldn’t mean squat against a high power materia blast, or a dead on blow from an enhanced super-soldier. The back-up teams had already positioned themselves, out in the darkness between Midgar and the scattered camp that had set itself up out in the parched, rocky land surrounding the city. The riff raff had the advantage to be sure. More rocky terrain to hide snipers, more cover if it came down to a firefight. Just damned more of them than he felt comfortable with, two against a hundred.   
They stopped two hundred yards out from the edge of the wastelander perimeter and got out, calm seeming as you please, to stand in front of the truck and wait for response. They’d seen them coming, of that Reno was pretty sure. He caught the glint of a lot of hardware nestled up in the rocks, a lot of firepower targeted in on the two of them from the shadows. A lot more right out in the open, as the riff raff sized them up. It was cool out here in the middle of the night, but Reno still felt the trickle of sweat run down his neck. He didn’t dare give away his nerves and look at Tseng to see if there was any sign of discomfort there. If the bastards out there didn’t see it as a sign of weakness and take advantage, then Tseng sure as hell would.   
There was some sort of concerted movement out there, the gunning of engines, the wheel spinning departure of vehicles out in the blackness beyond the wastelander camp, circling round maybe, to get a better vantage or to check out what Reno and Tseng had brought with them. Oh, well, they weren’t expecting the bastards to think they were fools. If they came upon their backup team, either the shit would hit the fan or it wouldn’t. That all depending on Diablo, who hadn’t shown himself yet.   
There was some yelling from the camp, some catcalls, some insults flung, the wastelanders not being a particularly disciplined group. The fact that Diablo had gathered this many larcenous nomads and bandits together as quickly as he had was nothing short of miraculous. To expect him to have complete control of them was beyond expectation.   
A couple more vehicles started up, spitting up a cloud of dust as they cut out towards their position. Reno lowered his lashes against the glare of headlights, and kept his hands placidly at his sides. He could reach a weapon quickly enough if he had to.   
They got dirt and rocks spit at them as the little beat up ATV’s spun to a stop yards from the front of their truck and a half dozen raggedy men piled out, bristling with scavenged weaponry, faces and bodies dark and scarred from the desperate lives they led.   
“You two lookin’ for a good time?” One of the wastelander’s sneered, sawed off S-19 automatic in his hand. They snickered, circling like a pack of dogs. Reno lifted a brow, mouth quirking up in a ‘come ahead’, smile that held nothing of pleasant invitation. He let his body relax, leaning back a little against the hood of the truck, letting these dogs know clear enough that their threat was an inconsequential one.   
“We’re here to extend an invitation to Diablo,” Tseng said matter of factly, like he was ordering coffee with his breakfast. “Let him know the President wishes to talk.”  
“The president!” they laughed. “What’s he want to talk to that pencil dick for, huh? More fun to use the two of you for target practice. See how well company grunts bleed.”  
They laughed more at that, dark eager humor that hinted that letting blood was not an uncommon game with them.   
Tseng just kept staring, impervious to their taunts. One of them walked right up to him, leaning a hand on the grill of the truck and laying the barrel of his gun against Tseng’s chest.   
“Boss must not give a shit about you two, huh, to send you out here, pretty as you please.”  
Tseng didn’t respond, but Reno felt the tension, saw Tseng’s head dip out of the corner of his eye, a moment before Tseng caught the barrel of the gun and slammed it back into the face of the wastelander who was testing him. Reno moved on his own, disregarding what Tseng was about in favor of seeing to his own welfare. He caught the wrist of the man who was swinging a spiked club at his own head and delivered the toe of his boot into a vulnerable crotch. He ripped the club out of the man’s grip and flung it underhanded into the face of one of them by their vehicles that were bringing up a gun.   
He had a gun out then, an automatic pistol that packed a helluva lot more power than the antiques these bastards carried, and swung it around to cover the remaining pack, but Tseng had one of them back the throat, his own sleek pistol pressed firm against the man’s eye socket.   
“Deliver the message.”  
“Message delivered.” A low voice drawled from out of the darkness behind the ATV’s. Tseng shoved the wastelander away from him, lowering his gun hand minutely, narrowing his eyes as a tall, broad shouldered figure strolled towards them, silhouetted against the glare of headlights. The photo Rufus had in his files was an old one, but the man was still recognizable as the steel eyed, grim-faced Genova enhanced assassin in the personal record. Just more lines, more scars and eyes that had gone from hard assed military to manic psychopath.   
The hairs on the back of Reno’s arms stood up. Instinct said, take a step backwards, hell instinct said run like hell, but bravado had always held a firmer hold on him than common sense. This was not a nice man. Not a sane one. And dangerous as hell.   
Diablo walked past his men, who did shift to get out of his immediate path, shifty eyes glued to his movements. He stopped an arm’s length from them, gave Reno an up and down, then turned his attention to Tseng.   
“They posed a good question. Why should talking with Rufus Shinra interest me?”  
“Isn’t that why you came?” Tseng asked. “To see the president?”  
“To see the president.” Diablo echoed and his mouth twisted in a parody of a smile. “That’s one way of putting it. Would that I could have seen his daddy, before he died. But the old man’s little boy will have to do.”  
“Rufus Shinra doesn’t have a problem with you. He didn’t initiate the experimentation that made you what you are.”  
“Really? He have anything to do with the execution of my team?”  
“No.” Tseng said, straight faced and God, but wasn’t that a bald faced lie if ever there was one. “Why not hear what he has to say, if it benefits the both of you?”  
Diablo canted his head, maybe contemplating the most entertaining way of taking them out, maybe listening to whatever voices talked to him in his head. Maybe Tseng picked up on that, and Tseng, being Tseng used it.   
“We can help you with problems you might have. With unwanted - - intrusions. The President is willing to deliver a good will offering that I guarantee you will want.”  
“Good will?”  
“Cloud Strife came back to town.”  
Reno felt the surge of power in the air. It was that palpable, and something seemed to flash, pale and bright in the shadows of Diablo’s eye sockets. Like Cloud was a trigger word with this psycho, or more likely with the psycho that lurked under the surface; and no matter what issues Reno had with Cloud, he felt a momentary little pang of repulsion, giving him up to this unpredictable bastard. Reno shivered and flexed his fingers on the gun, wishing Rude were out there somewhere to watch his back instead of a lot of faceless company grunts.   
“All right,” Diablo growled. “Maybe I’ll play his little game.”  
Tseng inclined his head. “Excellent. He’ll meet you at the - - “  
“No! He doesn’t set up the meet. There’s an old deep-cell escape bunker out past the city south of here that used to lead out from the sector six sub-basement. You know the place? Where Rufus’s daddy used to keep the worst of the worst of his pet projects. We’ll meet there, an hour from now or not at all. Bring whatever backup you feel comfortable with, but you try me and I go for the Shinra brat first and foremost and the rest of you are gravy.”  
“Understood,” Tseng said, no hesitation and turned without anything further to walk around to the driver’s door of the truck. Reno pocketed his gun and went for the other side, and even as they were backing up to make a turn and get out of there, he kept expecting to get hit from behind with something big enough to tear them apart. It never came. 

 

They had to track down Tifa and Barret in the dead of night to tell them the news. Barret had been at the bar, and Tifa in the ShinRa donated safe house with the kids. Frightened kids who’d for the most part had never had much trust to begin with, burned out of the shelter they’d found and afraid they’d loose more than that. Cid didn’t want to tell them what lurked outside the city limits, didn’t have the finesse it took to word it in a way that wouldn’t make matters worse. He’d leave that up to Tifa, who was damned and determined to see them somewhere safe until this mess blew over.   
The old subway tunnels, she and Barret decided almost simultaneously, the two of them knowing of quite a few old Avalanche hideouts that would serve quite well to protect a bunch on innocents from a conflict that might come sniffing around things associated with Cloud.   
“You take them there, get them settled and we’ll meet up either at the bar, or the southeast city wall.”   
“We need to get Cloud.” Tifa caught at Cid’s arm, grip adamant. She was right of course, the kid laying unprotected in some uptown hospital was just asking for trouble. Trusting Rufus Shinra to see to his well being when Cloud couldn’t see to it himself, well that just sat wrong with Cid. He glanced back at the shadow that was Vincent outside the open door and nodded once.   
“Okay, we’ll go get Cloud. Take him down with the kids if he’s too out of it to argue.”  
She nodding trusting he and Vincent could see to that task, even though she didn’t like leaving it up to someone else. But she had a lot of kids looking to her for protection, for reassurances that she was more capable of giving than Barret, who was as ham-handed with words as Cid.   
Which left Cid and Vincent to make their way back uptown, hitching a ride from one of the sector-to-sector buses, which was mostly empty this time of night. It was a pedestrian way to travel and Cid could just feel Vincent’s discomfort with it. He figured Vincent could have made his own way, through the night dark city just as quick, maybe quicker, but he made the sacrifice of public transit for Cid’s sake. Touching.   
They got off a couple of blocks from the hospital, and made the rest of the trip on foot, the sidewalks empty of pedestrians, the streets mostly deserted save for the occasional transit bus or security pass that patrolled this part of town 24-7, as opposed to only showing up under duress and during the worst possible scenarios in the low rent sectors. There weren’t any gang bangers here, or homeless wondering the streets, living in the shelter of alleyways and doorstoops. That type of undesirable got swept down towards the old city along with the rest of the refuse.   
This time of night, the main entrance of the hospital was open, but the lobby dark. Emergencies were directed to the trauma entrance at the side. They went through the front way, having traveled that route before and not wanting to have to wander around the halls lost. There was no receptionist, but there was security. A single guard with a holstered small caliber gun at his side and the look of a man who enjoyed his pretense of authority.   
“Sorry, the hospital is closed to the public after hours. Visiting hours are 8 to 6.” He hand a hand out, palm up to bar their way.   
Vincent just sidestepped him, ignoring his presence altogether, and Cid slowed his pace just enough to let the guy turn and direct whatever energy he was going to exert to stop this intrusion against Vincent, instead of Cid’s mending body.  
“Hey, you can’t - -“ the guard complained, and almost had a hand on Vincent’s shoulder, when Vincent spun, metal clawed hand bunched in the guard’s collar as he propelled him back against a pristine hospital wall. Vincent’s eyes had that tinge of orange that hinted at a less than placid mood and the guard withered visibly under that baleful stare.   
“He don’t like to be touched,” Cid explained helpfully. “And we ain’t here to cause trouble, unless trouble finds us, so why don’t you go on back to your coffee break and let us mind our business?”  
The guard stammered, eyes fixed on Vincent’s, picking up on the not so subtle aura of darkness under the veneer, now that it had him fixed in its sights. Cid shook his head, the hairs on the back of his own neck standing up, maybe from what Vincent was exuding, that dark, merciless predator that he knew Vincent could be if he lost control, or maybe just reacting to what was causing it; that being this whole unfortunate situation and the prospect of a lot of innocent blood spilled.   
He put a hand on Vincent’s arm, and the gaze flickered momentarily to him, and if he’d been a wiser man he’d have snatched the hand back, but damned if he was going to start getting spooked over Vincent’s touchier sides, and he increased his grip, urging Vincent to let the guard go and retreat down the hall with him, while the man leaned against the wall gathering his wits.   
Vincent went, chin lowered into his collar so that only a slice of his face was visible.   
“Just a grunt doing his job,” Cid said, punching the elevator button at the end of the hall. Second floor was where Cloud had been. He hoped he still was. Having to harass a new room number out of a nurse didn’t sit right with him.   
They walked unmolested down the hall to the ward where Cloud had been, and into the dimmed chamber, where one nurse sat the central station, monitoring a pair of patients, who hadn’t been there before. There was no sign of Cloud. Well, maybe that was a good thing, the kid having recovered enough to be moved somewhere less critical.   
“’Lo there,” He started, walking towards here while Vincent stayed planted in the ward doorway. The nurse looked up startled, even as the swinging door at the other end of the room pushed open, emitting the very same doctor that had talked to them about Cloud earlier in the day.   
“I’m sorry, but you can’t be in here,” the nurse started, reflexive dismissal, but the doctor had stopped stock-still, eyes wide, face gone pale and frightened. Vincent caught that guilt/fear before it registered on Cid, and was moving even as the doctor spun and ran back the way he’d come.   
Vincent got two steps before security burst into the ward on their heels, summoned no doubt by the first guard. Only this wasn’t regular hospital staff, but blue uniformed ShinRa muscle with automatic weaponry swung up and ready to use.   
“SonuvaBITCH!” Cid swore and dove for the gaping nurse, sailing over the countertop and taking her down just as gunfire made a mockery of hospital peace and quiet. Vincent, he trusted to take care of himself.   
And Vincent did, Cid catching a damned fast flash of red against the bland ceiling of the ward as Vincent drew the idiot’s fire upwards instead of down where innocents could be hurt.   
This was damned sure not regular hospital policy for censuring visitors ignoring posted hospital visiting hours and that pasty faced doctor had not run for his life because they’d shown up after dark. Goddamned ShinRa stink. He could smell the stench of schemes and double-dealing so strong it made his nose hairs curl.   
He didn’t figure he needed to tell the nurse to stay down, she was cowering in fetal position in the clutter he’d made behind the nurse’s station. He stuck a head up and saw two guards down and the third about to join them, without ever a shot fired on Vincent’s part. Like the guard downstairs these were just grunts and following orders they had no understanding of, the doctor might know things of interest and he was probably halfway out of the hospital by now. Cid took off after him, figuring Vincent would follow once he was done here.   
He slammed through the swinging doors at the end of the ward and into a dimmed hallway that had doors leading off it into rooms with expensive looking equipment and beyond that what looked like offices deserted for the night. He heard the distance echo of footfalls, rapid and diminishing. He pelted down the hallway, making his own clomping echoes and came to a dead end at the door to the stairwell. He yanked it open, and heard the patter of feet on steps. Heading down, he thought.   
The doc wasn’t in bad shape for a man his age, Cid discovered dourly, as the man made the ground floor door in record time and burst through at a dead run, screaming for security.   
Damn. Cid came out afterwards into a better lit hall with a few night nurses blinking in shock at the fleeing doctor, then backing up against the wall as Cid hurtled after him. A big orderly appeared, drawn by the Doctor’s cries for help, took one look at the retreating white coated doctor, one look at Cid’s grungy self and started towards Cid in a threatening manner. Cid shoved a gurney into the orderly and kept going as the man staggered into the obstruction.   
The doc was out the fire exit and into the night, and Cid was on his heels, wondering how much time he had before more security came raining down on him. Long enough maybe to find out what sort of guilts drove the doctor to flee like demons were one his heels.   
There was an alley outside the fire exit, not the sort of ally you’d find in a lower rent sector, but a relatively clean one, minus vagrants and piled trash and scurrying creatures feeding off human refuse. The doc’s stamina was flagging and even though Cid wasn’t as fast as he used to be, he had a lifetimes worth of hard work to shore his endurance. He closed the distance, caught a fistful of the doc’s white coat and swung him about into the alley wall. The man squealed like a stuck pig and started struggling. He had nothing on Cid as far as dirty fighting went, and Cid jammed an elbow against his throat and slammed the man’s head back against the wall.   
“Get off of me. Let me go, damn you.” The man screamed hoarsely, still struggling, then quite abruptly the struggles stopped, the man’s gaze darting past Cid and fixing, wide-eyed on something behind him. There was terror in that look that wouldn’t have come from approaching security. Cid glanced over his shoulder and saw Vincent, half silhouetted against the light from the end of the alley, ragged ends of his cloak flapping and swirling like something alive, the red glow of his eyes burning like demon-fire from the shadows the night made of his face. Even Cid shivered.  
Okay, so this was Vincent officially pissed off and not trying to hide it. Cid knew Vincent on a blood hunt when he saw it and stepped aside with one hand still gripping the doc’s shoulder so the cowering man could get a good looksee himself. There was nothing like abject fear to make a man spill his guts. And Vincent, on his darker days, was right good at inspiring fear.   
Vincent stepped in closer than was his want, invading his own personal space requirements and the black muzzle of Cerebus came up from under his cloak, gleaming and deadly, holding that faint, hair raising aura of a weapon packed with more than simple man-made armaments. You got that feeling off of Cloud’s swords big time, off of Cid’s best lance back when it had been infused with three different types of materia.   
Vincent didn’t say a thing, just stood there, threat eminent and the doctor started blathering.   
“I was just following orders. I swear - - I swear I was just doing what I was told. He wasn’t harmed - - wasn’t - -“  
“Where is he?” Vincent cut into the babble, apparently not caring about the why’s and the wherefores, since he’d been suspicious of ShinRa duplicity from the get go. None of the rest of them had been, not enough at any rate, fools that they were.   
“I don’t know. I swear it, I don’t know. I’m just a doctor - - just a doctor - -“ the man broke, sobbing. Mercilessly, Vincent pressed the muzzle of the gun hard up under his chin.   
“Where?”  
“They came and took him away. Less than an hour ago. ShinRa personnel - - ShinRa private security. They didn’t tell me anything - - just came and got him.”  
Meaning Turks. The same damn Turks that had brought him here and been lurking around making sure he stayed put here. And for what? They weren’t at odds these days; at least that he knew of. What was Rufus Shinra up to?  
That question didn’t seem a priority to Vincent. He stepped back of a sudden, the gun disappearing under his cloak, letting the weak-kneed doctor slide down the wall in shock, an embarrassing stain of wet between his pants legs where he’d peed himself.   
“Where the fuck you going?” Cid caught at Vincent’s arm and Vincent turned his predator look upon him.   
“To go and find someone who would know.”  
“What, and rip it out of ‘em?”  
Vincent gave him a flat look, red-eyed and devoid of emotion. “Yes. And I hunt best alone. Don’t take chances, Cid.”   
And he was gone, kiting up the side of the building via one fluid leap to a fire escape landing and then another to the opposite building roof.   
“Great. Just fucking great!!” Cid called up at the night sky. “Don’t mind me, Goddamnit.”

 

There wasn’t a lot of time to make arrangements, if they wanted to keep to Diablo’s timetable. Just a call to the boss, and then another to the ShinRa Op’s captain out there in the wastes with Reno and Tseng’s backup, to get forces on the move and take what precautions could be taken. Not that a whole lot could be taken, given the circumstances and the fact that the boss himself was going to be in the vicinity. If Reno had had his rathers, he would have pulled all their forces back, let Diablo and his band of miscreants descend upon the meet point and deliver a salvo of city-killer missiles right down their throats. But that was just him. The boss didn’t ever reason things out in such simple, straightforward terms. There was always an angle. Always layers under layers of stratagems to be played out.   
Got that from his daddy, Reno supposed, but no matter what traits Rufus had picked up from the former president of ShinRa, he was a marginally straighter shooter than his old man. He had a conscience buried somewhere that came out on occasion, where his old man - - well, he had been a right cold bastard, and Reno knew bastards when he saw them.   
They met up with Rufus’s convoy halfway there, getting constant reports from the night-dark high-flyers circling the perimeter of Wastelander movement. Damn, but there were a lot of them out there. More than they’d first thought, more nomads wondering in from the wastes all the time. Who they all were was anyone’s guess. Bandits and thieves was a given, maybe a lot of deserters from the Genova war that had drifted out into the badlands to escape notice, maybe a lot of folk displaced by the destruction of Midgar, that had just been to traumatized and too fucked-up to ever trust going back to the city that had sprung up around the edges of the disaster and had turned feral out there away from civilization. Regardless, all of them seemed drawn to Diablo. Drawn to that mad-crazy power like scavenger beasts trailing in the wake of a bad-assed predator hoping to feast off his leavings.   
The escape bunker would only ever have been found by someone in the know. It was nothing more than a camouflaged hatch in the midst of a series of rocky outcroppings twelve miles from the city. Twelve miles out and the lights of the new city were only memories and the night sky was a vast, opinionless observer to the forces converging on this one forgotten little spot.   
Reno got out when Tseng did, jacket heavy with hidden weaponry, the feel of hardware strapped to his leg, and met the Boss’s escort as it pulled up in a cloud of dust with Elena at the wheel. Three big black SUV’s just like the one Tseng and Reno had driven in in. There were a couple of night-flyers out there, circling silently and loaded down with weaponry, and more ShinRa forces deployed at their backs. The boss hadn’t come in unprotected.   
Reno saw Rude emerge from the vehicle behind Rufus. His partner glanced his way, nodded once and canted his head to say something to someone still inside the truck. He shut the door then and stood with his back to it, guard stance. Which meant he wasn’t moving out with the rest of Rufus’s escort towards the bunker.   
The comm. unit in his ear was spitting out information. The approach of enemy ground forces, but no word of them already being in position here. Thank you for small favors.   
The boss’s all access keycard didn’t work on the bunker door, the mechanisms gone corroded from time and disrepair. They had to pry it open. A waft of stale air drifted out. Tseng motioned men into action and they proceeded into the darkness to scout ahead. God knew what was living down there in the forgotten darkness. After a few moments there was the sound of something kicking in and a low hum preceded the activation of emergency lights along the bottom of the entrance hall. The generators apparently retained some juice, enough at any rate so that they weren’t staggering around in the pitch dark with only handheld flashlights to lead the way. The hall lead down immediately, a slanted ramp melting into a small platform with an untrustworthy elevator on one side and a stairwell on the other.   
Rufus chose the stairs and his guard took up positions around him. Reno looked over the stair rail down into darkness. The lights barely pierced down there, but as his eyes adjusted, he saw the faint glow of the same emergency lights here and there along the bottom of what appeared to be a large chamber. His flashlight beam wondered across the surface of large, unidentified pieces of machinery, of stacks of crates and barrels. Emergency supplies maybe to outfit the fleeing upper echelon.   
Somebody brought down a big portable light, and with the flare of that, a good deal of the chamber came into view. They got the tunnel door open, the one leading further downwards towards Midgar, a path of retreat if they needed it, even if it probably dead ended in some cave in way down the road. It was better than nothing and they could hold it until reinforcements got to them. He hoped.   
“They’re coming in. They’re coming in.” The warning crackled over his earpiece and men scrambled for what positions they could get at to cover the fools standing placidly in the middle of the floor waiting for disaster.   
Reno put on his game face and waited.   
Soon enough they came. Diablo appearing at the platform at the top of the stairs, scurrying, shadowy forms bleeding through the bunker hatch behind him. He was a perfect target for a dozen ShinRa snipers, but no one took the shot, because the boss hadn’t signaled it. He started down the steps, fingers lazily trailing across the rusted railing, and his followers gave him ample room to pass through them, cringing back almost, as if they feared he might turn on them if the mood struck.   
Rufus watched him come, leaning casually on his cane, with no more outward sign of nerves than if he’d been meeting with some potential business connection. Tseng and Elena stood on either side at his back. Reno took up a position to the left, where he had a clear line of vision and cover to take advantage of it he needed it.   
“So what is it, you think we need to talk about, Shinra?” Diablo padded towards the boss, the one pale figure among a sea of darkness and shadow, gaze fixed upon his goal, ignoring their armed forces as much as he ignored his own. He stopped a few feet away and the boss didn’t flinch. Tseng and Elena were too good to reach for weapons, but Reno knew they both wanted to bad. He wanted to.   
“You have a misconception about what ShinRa is today, Diablo. May I call you, Diablo?” Rufus watched the madman with placid pleasantness.   
Diablo arched a brow.   
“We’re not the same organization we were before Meteor. The people who initiated and carried out the unfortunate projects that you and others like you were involved with, are long dead. Your hostility is misplaced.”  
“Really?” Diablo canted his head. The portable light and the shadows made planes of his face seem deeper, the pits of his eyes almost impenetrable. “You’re innocent of all your daddy’s crimes, huh? Doing charity work now?”  
“Some,” Rufus said. “I can help you.”  
That made Diablo laugh. “You think I need help, boy? I think you got that turned around.”  
Rufus’s smile didn’t waver, even when Diablo stepped closer, putting them close enough to feel each other’s breath. Elena did reach her hand into her jacket, then and Tseng tensed. God, no doubt every company finger in the room was sweating on triggers at that moment. It wouldn’t matter if Diablo decided to take the boss out. Rufus would be dead before any of them could get off a shot.   
“You’re right,” Rufus said. “I need your help. Just as you need mine. I know what’s gotten inside you. I know you don’t welcome it. Him.”  
Diablo snarled softly, hand curled in Rufus’s jacket so fast that Reno never even saw the movement. Nose to nose with Diablo, growling in his face, and Rufus held up a hand to Tseng, warning off retaliation, and Tseng stepped back unwillingly, a clear signal that everybody else do the same.   
“You don’t know anything.”   
“Last year he tried the same thing, and succeeded.” Rufus said calmly, on the balls of his feet under Diablo’s grasp. “Only then he had a willing partner. He won’t go back to the lifestream and how he’s holding on, I don’t know. Power, I assume. A great deal of power. I don’t want that power released back into this world. It’s my duty to see that doesn’t happen. My burden, you could say, for the sins of my father. We beat him last time, and the body he was using was shattered. He’s found a better body.”  
“You beat him?” Diablo had regained composure. He let Rufus go and the boss took a half step back and shrugged.   
“You know who beat him. Can you tell me you didn’t go after him because of outside urgings? How long can you hold out, Diablo, before he takes over? And you don’t strike me as a man who would care for subsumption to another. We can help you. We’ve been studying the problem for a year now, searching for methods to circumvent him if he tried again.”  
“You want I should walk into a ShinRa lab and let your white-coated killers have a go at me? You think you’re that persuasive?”  
“I know you’ve little reason to trust me. So I’ve a peace offering. The best weapon I have to use against you, as a sign of good faith and better intentions.”  
“Cloud.” Diablo breathed and a flash of interest glinted in the dark pits of his eyes. Something foreign stirring with interest at the scent of prime bait.   
“In good faith.” Rufus agreed, smiling while he made a devil’s deal and honestly Reno didn’t know whether all the stuff he’d said was 100% or not. With all the secrecy and the double-dealing, Reno just wasn’t sure. God knew what Diablo, who had a legitimate grudge against him was thinking.   
Thinking about getting his hands on Cloud again, most likely, from the look on his face. Maybe him and what was lurking beneath his surface were both dwelling on that possibility and liking it.   
“If I wanted to double cross you, do you think I would be giving you Cloud on a silver platter, instead of holding him back to launch at you later?” Rufus reasoned, smooth as silk. Diablo wasn’t a tactician. He wasn’t a politician. He’d been trained as a killing machine, plain and simple, and maybe he was buying into what the boss was saying, maybe the idea of Sephiroth using his flesh like puppet was getting past the shaky mental defenses of a man on the edge.   
“Bring him,” Diablo said sharply. “And maybe I’ll think on your offer.”  
Rufus nodded to Tseng and Tseng turned his head marginally to speak into his collar. Diablo stood staring at Rufus while they waited with that under the surface simmering psychosis. Hair-trigger, Reno thought. Just damned hair-triggered and liable to change his mind and go off at any moment with Rufus within arm’s reach.   
The tension broke with movement on the platform at the top of the stairs. The lurking wastelanders shifted aside, allowing entry to ShinRa ops. Rude strode to the rail and two big guards in body armor followed him, dragging Cloud between them. They’d gotten him dressed again since the last time Reno had seen him, but he was completely out, limp as a rag doll in their grasps. Rude grasped a handful of blonde hair and pulled his head up.   
Rufus was an afterthought then, Diablo attention fully focused on Cloud. He bounded upwards, ignoring the stairs, landing in a crouch on the top rail right next to Rude. Reno held his breath, but Diablo hopped down casually, and caught hold of Cloud’s collar, jerking him loose from the two guards. Rude stepped back, out of his way, as he thrust Cloud into the arms of his gathered rabble.   
One last look down at Rufus, gauging, then he turned on his heel and strode out of the bunker.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Fair warning. This chapter is brutal so if non-con and character torture upsets you, please skim over the Cloud parts of this chapter.**

“I don’t spook easy. You know I don’t spook easy,” Reno told Rude after they’d dropped off the truck full of armed ShinRa personnel that had ridden out to the bunker with Rude.   
Rude grunted agreement, most of his attention on the road leading into the new city sector and merging into the scant traffic that was out this time of early morning. The sun was a faint promise of light out over the wasteland and the earliest of the early morning vendors and first shift workers were just getting out on the road. Rufus was probably already back at his penthouse, Tseng and Elena having gotten him out of there as soon as Diablo and his pack of mercenaries had quit the area. There were still ShinRa spotter troops out there, hidden amongst the rocks around the outskirts of the city. First alert if the gathered force of wastelanders out there made a move on the city.   
“But that guy - - man, he creeped me out. Hell, you saw him close up and personal, didn’t he freak you out?”  
Rude grunted again, an affirmative sound that not just anyone could have deciphered. Reno had learned over the years to interpret Rude’s grunts, nods and muscle twitches.   
“I swear to God, it seemed like his eyes were shifting color while he was talking to the boss. And there was just this vibe coming off him - - I dunno what that was, but it was not good. Made me feel a little bad, handing Cloud over, y’know? I hope the boss knows what he’s doing.”  
“Yeah.” Rude cut the engine in the alley behind Chiv’s, the best little all-nighter café this side of town. It was a Turk hangout, being a block down the street from the non-descript warehouse that served the Turks as equipment depot and training facility. They had a narrow window of opportunity to catch a bite to eat and get a few minutes of shut-eye while that bastard out in the wastelands figured out what he wanted to do, and the boss got ready for whatever it was he was planning on doing. Reno hated all this pussy footing around a bad situation. He’d rather go in guns blazing and solve it once and for all. Diplomacy, he’d been informed on multiple occasions, had never been a strong point with him. Of course, he wasn’t paid to be diplomatic. Which, come to think on it, was probably why he wasn’t in the know about what the boss really had up his sleeve.   
What would really be nice about now was a stiff drink or six. Which notion Rude frowned at, since they were still on the clock with a damned lot of shifty unknowns floating in the wind. Coffee would have to do.  
Reno got out and stretched, trying to relieve an itch underneath the body armor beneath his suit. It would be sheer pleasure to get out of that thing. He didn’t like wearing it, because light as it was, it was still that little bit of extra something that hampered his movements. He heard Rude splash in a puddle that would have been hard to avoid in the pot-marked, shadows of the alley. There was a dilapidated delivery truck parked just down the way from Chiv’s back door and criss crossed clotheslines stretching across overhead from the apartments above the street level businesses. Over those, the bulk of an overpass cast its shadow over the whole of the area.   
Habit made him scan those dark places, the shelter of a building top, the hidey places within the recesses of fire escapes. He might have missed the flutter of movement otherwise. It separated from the high darknesses and came bulleting down with a fluttering of what a creative mind might assume to be ragged wings.   
“Rude,” he warned, automatically going for the gun in his jacket. Rude saw where he was looking and acted simultaneously, pulling his own gun and standing firm and solid while Reno ducked to the side, targeting the shadows. He saw a glint of metal and fired, his shot echoing in the alley. The shadow bounced off a wall like a ricochet avoiding the bullet and made the ground with barely a sound other than the faint ripple of cloth and the telltale cocking of a gun.   
Then the street level light crept in and revealed detail, red so dark it almost looked black, streaming black hair and damned unnerving red eyes in a face that did not have anything of forgivingness in it.   
Fuck. Vincent Valentine, who might once have been a Turk and drawn a company paycheck, but who had no reason now to be anything but dispassionate towards them. Hell, he had a lot of damn good reasons to actively despise them. And then there was the Cloud thing . . .  
“Goddamnit!” Maybe it was a guilty conscience on that score that made him go on the offensive when a wiser man might have paused to see what Valentine’s intentions were.   
He fired, two, three times and Rude didn’t have a choice but to follow his lead and cover his back as he dove for the cover of ATV. Valentine wasn’t there anymore; he was a blur of shadowy red cloak moving faster than even Reno’s trained eye could easily follow. He might have scored a shot somewhere in the mix, he wasn’t sure. Maybe Rude did in that hail of gunfire coming from them.   
And Valentine hadn’t fired a damned round, until there was a crack of a shot with more power behind it than the ShinRa high-power automatics had to deliver. Reno saw Rude stagger from the corner of his eye, saw his legs give way as he collapsed in the filth of the alley.   
Reno hissed, cursing and skidded out in a haze of fury, firing everything he had left in his clip, coming up empty and reaching for the extendable billy club at his back. Valentine came to a stop between him and Rude, long barreled gun at his side, muzzle pointing ground-ward. Between hair, headband and collar his face was barely visible, but what Reno did see was grim and focused.   
“Where is he?” Valentine asked softly. There didn’t have to be threat in his voice, it was clinging to the rest of him like the stink of too much cologne. Reno opened his mouth to respond with something that would probably get him shot, then hesitated at movement beyond Valentine’s shoulder. Rude, staggering to his feet, lifting his gun, about to give Valentine a nasty surprise.  
“Get bent,” Reno suggested, drawing attention to himself.   
Without batting a lash, without taking his blood-red eyes off Reno, Valentine lifted his arm and swung that damned big gun of his around, the dull-grey muzzle dead on with Rude’s forehead.  
Reno took a breath, having a sickening vision of the back of Rude’s head exploding in bits of grey matter that wasn’t so grey after all, spattering the grimy wall of the building behind him. He didn’t doubt for a moment that Valentine wasn’t capable of cold-blooded murder. The man had been a Turk after all.  
“All right, all right.” He held up hands in surrender. “Ease up and I spill.”  
Valentine stood there, as unflinching as Rude, who might have been having visions similar to Reno’s.   
Might as well take the medicine and get it over with in one mouthful. “We traded him to Diablo.”  
Valentine’s chin lowered marginally, those black-rimmed devil eyes of his narrowing unpleasantly. He didn’t speak for a moment, turning over Reno’s revelation in his head, then, “Traded him . . . for what?”  
Reno half-laughed, but the wry humor of the situation - - or lack thereof - - caught in his throat. “Y’know, I’m not 100% sure about that.”  
“Reno . . ,” Rude growled in warning. There was blood trailing down from under the white of his sleeve, dripping off his fingers.   
“What the fuck?” Reno said, frustrated, no small bit scared he might see the flash of gunfire from the muzzle of the gun pointed at Rude’s head while Rude wanted to play company lapdog. Well, fuck the boss if he wanted to play head games with friend and foe alike. Maybe if Reno knew a goddamned thing about what was going on, he’d be more inclined to keep his mouth shut.   
“Rufus says he can help Diablo - - I dunno - - suppress Sephiroth. Says it’s in everybody’s best interests, which might be true, all things considered. If he’s telling the truth . . . which is anybody’s guess . . . he gave the bastard Cloud as a good-will gesture. Don’t ask me where that inspiration came from.”  
“Where?”   
And there was nothing to do really, but tell him . . .

* * *

He’d lived this before, caught in some other undending nightmare. The sickening, lurching movement interspaced by utter void of everything. Flashes of night black sky pierced by the blurred pinpoints of stars. The deafening sound of revved up engines. Heat against his back, the jolting impact of his head against a hard surface. Repeatedly, slapping him back into blackness again and again.   
Until it stopped with a skidding grate of tires in dirt and a lurch that liked to tear his arms from their sockets. But Cloud stayed put and lay staring through black tinged vision at the curiously spinning sky. He might have sank under again, but for the sounds of other engines still approaching, of other vehicles braking to short stops, of voices in the night, loud, raucous, laughing, cursing. There were gunshots that echoed off rock towers and whoops and hollers in appreciation. Men gathered, silhouettes against the illumination of headlights.   
He grayed out. Came back again with an ache in his back. Comprehension was an elusive thing, a moth flittering in and out of the darkness, tempted by the light, but not quite trusting of it. He couldn’t understand why he couldn’t shake the fog.   
He tried to roll over and relieve the pressure, but his arm, attached at the wrist to something above and to the right of him prevented that motion. The same held true for the other arm.   
A little surge of panic fed adrenaline served to clear his mind and he tilted his head, looking up and backwards, catching a crazy swirl of star-dotted night sky past the overhang of a craggy tower of rock. Closer still was the roll bar of, from what details he could make out from his angle, a much battered, open-topped ATV. He was on his back on the hood, wrists chained to either side of the forward roll bar, legs secured similarly by chains that disappeared down the grill to the bumper. The hood was still warm under him, which meant the vehicle had not long sat dormant.   
He cursed under his breath, twisting his head about to find out what else lay in his line of vision. Lots of big rocks obscuring the landscape. Big rocks close together, which probably meant one of the thousand or so rocky grottos dotting the wastelands outside Midgar. God, please let it not be further than that. He was working with a lot of fathomless depths, blanks in his memory that seemed overwhelming and that shook him to the core, all too familiar and all too frightening. He couldn’t place piece together the last clear memory he had. Traveling to the city with Cid and Vincent - - no being in the new city at the edges of the old - - walking though new sectors - - the bar and Tifa, who was okay - - listening to Barret’s stories - - and not much after that.   
Something exploded sharply, like live ammunition going off without benefit of a weapon. There were startled cries and the raucous laughter that he picked out past the low whine of wasteland wind. Now that his eyes were adjusting, now that his mind was shedding the fog, he could see the flicker of orange to his left. Could see the shapes of other vehicles in the darkness and the milling shapes of men, standing in the shadows in groups. The murmur of their conversation was more pronounced now, their faces lit occasionally by the lighting of a smoke, or the flicker of one of the low fires they’d started. There were a lot of them; ragged men who moved furtively, like nervous predators, just like the ones in the desert outside Gold Saucer.   
What the hell had happened to him to land him back in their midst? He had a shuddery flashback of those terrible hours in the bunker, in the pit, fighting off an inexhaustible supply of beasts, Diablo’s followers leering down through the grate from above, waiting for his exhaustion to make him slip, wanting his death like they wanted a drug. Of Diablo and Diablo’s mad/alien eyes bearing down upon him . . .  
He drifted, caught in the miasma of that nightmare for a moment and it took effort to shake free of it, which meant he wasn’t whole. Wasn’t free of whatever it was that had dragged him under to begin with. He could feel the leaden weight of it inside him, making muscles and thought sluggish still.   
Someone staggered near the vehicle he lay upon - - several someones - - and a hand touched his leg. He flinched, jerking the knee up as much as he could within the restriction of chain.   
“Gor, but he’s nice to look at.” A woman’s slurred voice. A woman’s half-clad body pushing past the men who accompanied her to climb up on the bumper of the ATV and lean over him with a knee on the hood between his legs. “I heard stories about you, boyo. You don’t look as tough as they say.” She leered, leaning closer still, one hand braced on the hood at his side, the other sliding up between his legs, squeezing his balls through the thick material of his trousers. The men behind her laughed.  
“Get off me.” He glared up into her hollow-cheeked, care-worn face and she sneered, superior in her freedom and his captivity.   
“C’mon, Lin.” One of the men, dragged her off him, arm around her waist, other hand fondling a breast. “What’cha want him for when you got us, huh?” The other man grunted in agreement and closed in on her, and she laughed low in her throat in appreciation of the attention, the three of them melting back into the darkness, falling against the side of a close parked truck to rut. Cloud could hear the sounds of their movements, their grunting breaths, could see the undulations of their silhouetted forms and he turned his head, trying to block it out.   
Easy enough when he let the rest of the camp sink in. Dozens of dark vehicle shapes within his obstructed line of vision, probably more out there in the darkness beyond his scope. Fires spotted here and there and the smell of roasting meat, the smell of fresh blood where they’d gutted whatever they’d hunted down and killed. A man in his position could only hope that prey had been animal and no higher species. The smell of booze was strong. That and gasolene and human sweat and stink. Somebody had a radio or a CD player that was emitting a tinny, caustic assault of Death-rock. Someone screamed, low and hoarse, but it could have been from sex as much as torture. Cloud shivered regardless, testing the chains again in desperation. There was no leverage. No slack to work with. His hands were numb and his legs starting to get that way. His side throbbed. Diablo was somewhere out there in the darkness, he felt it in his bones, felt it in the nausea that curled in his belly.   
He was scared. Foolish not to admit it. Terrified at his own lapse of memory as much as from anything. Not knowing how he’d gotten here was almost as bad as actually being here. Blank spaces and missing time brought back uncomfortable reminiscences of the past that he in no wise wanted to dwell on.   
More men stalked past him, trailing a stink of cheap whisky and sweat, laughing amidst themselves, hollow boasting over imaginary prowess, casting him looks as they passed. He heard the word ShinRa in the mix and narrowed his eyes, some not too distant memory stirring under the fog.  
“Those company bastards run with their tails between their legs once we put the fear o’the devil into them, didn’t they?” one drunk cutthroat boasted and his friends jeeringly agreed, one of them pausing by Cloud’s ATV to pee against the wheel. They laughed at that and one of them slapped him on the thigh, suggesting something appalling, before they staggered off, leaving the acrid smell of urine in their wake.   
It got rowdier, as more wastelanders joined the gathering, the sounds of gunshots shattering the night, the rev of engines out there in the darkness, the screams of ecstasy or pain, the cries of conflict as brawls burst out. Hands touched him sometimes, rough and hurtful as they passed, as groups of lean men, hard-faced and scarred gathered about, staring at him as if he’d given them some personal offense, making awful conjecture about the things they might do to a captive in their midst. He met eyes with cold stares of his own, because you never, ever backed down from beasts, even if you were sorely disadvantaged. Somebody clambered onto the hood of the ATV and forced the mouth of a bottle between his lips and he choked on the burn of bad whisky. The stuff tasted like it had been cut with gasoline and scorched its way all the way down to an empty stomach.   
The last thing he needed, foggy headed as he was. It spilled out of his mouth when he refused to swallow, so they pinched his nose until he hadn’t a choice but swallow the foul stuff down and hope to get a breath of air in the process. Half of it seemed to go down the wrong way and he sputtered and gagged, bucking up in panic at impending suffocation, dislodging the bastard who sat on him. They thought that was hilarious, even the one who’d toppled off the hood. Somebody caught his jaw as he was wheezing and gasping after air and licked the spilled whisky off the side of his face.  
“He don’t like our fine brew,” someone jeered.   
“Give ‘im a little ‘eye of the snake’ and see if that don’t go down better.” Someone else laughed. There was enough of a crowd around the ATV now that all he could see were bodies in patchwork clothing, heavy with weapons, dirty and scarred and merciless.   
“Let’s see his snake,” a female voice slurred, and the woman from before climbed up on the bumper to lean on the hood between his legs, working at the buckle to his belt, swift bony fingers sliding under his fly and finding flesh. He cringed at her touch. Ground his teeth and glared bloody murder as she pulled his limp cock out and lowered her mouth down upon it. Then a man was on his chest again, blocking what she was doing between his legs, prying his jaw open enough to jam the lip of another bottle between his teeth, while somebody else leaned in to pinch his nostrils closed to force the stuff down. This time it didn’t taste like it had been cut with gasoline, it tasted of piss cut with liquor and he shuddered and gagged and swallowed out of necessity, eyes watering and balls wanting to crawl up into his body in revulsion.   
He blinked skyward, the only angle available with hands on his face and hands on his body and chains stretching limbs taut and blurrily saw the silhouette of a man high atop the rocky tower above this lurid gathering. A man who had been there god knew how long, silent and still and observant.   
Maybe Cloud’s discovery of the watcher spurred action out of him, or maybe Diablo was simply tired of playing voyeur and wanted participation of the fun. He stepped off the edge and plummeted the ninty feet to the ground, landing in a slight crouch amidst the startled ring of onlookers. Men gave him room and the one’s with hands on him backed off as they realized Diablo stalked among them. Cloud wondered with that idle sort of detachment that went hand in hand with way too much hard liquor if they knew what Diablo had done to his men in that bunker outside Gold Saucer. He wondered if they’d care, bloodthirsty bastards that they all were. In their world, it was survival of the strongest and Diablo was most certainly at the top of the heap.   
Diablo walked forward, stopping at the front of the ATV and staring down dispassionately. His eyes lingered on Cloud’s open fly and his exposed genitals, wet from the woman’s mouth and limp despite of it. Cloud couldn’t see his eyes in the shadow, couldn’t tell what dwelled there. Whether it was Diablo’s own brand of madness or Sephiroth’s influence that guided his actions.   
“Tried to get him ready for you,” the woman purred boldly sidling up to the edge of the ATV when the men were wise enough to give Diablo space. “But as you can see, there weren’t no getting it up. Soft as a little boy, but maybe he don’t like a woman’s touch, huh? Maybe he needs cock to stiffen his prick? Pretty as he is, bet that’s the case.”  
“Maybe.” Diablo’s lips curved a little in a smile. Cloud glared at him, breath coming hard, angry/scared/wanting to puke. Holding his head up was an effort.   
“Let him go,” Diablo suggested softly and men jumped to do his bidding, until the chains were loose and slid off Cloud’s wrists and ankles. Even freed he lay there, world spinning, until Diablo reached down and caught a handful of sweater and dragged him off the hood. He went down at Diablo’s feet, legs having no strength to support him, trapped on his knees with the grill of the ATV at his back and Diablo’s legs against his shoulders. Diablo pressed him back and every instinct screamed make a move, take his feet out under him and roll to the left where there were fewer of the wastelanders, find a weapon and run for it. He couldn’t make his body do it, all he could manage was to turn his face away to avoid Diablo’s crotch.   
Diablo’s fingers wrapped around his throat, drawing him up, then flinging him backwards into the ring of onlookers. Men scattered, some avoiding him, others bowled over by the impact of his body. They sprawled in the dirt, men scrambling to get out of the tangle of limbs when Cloud hadn’t the strength to extricate himself. Diablo pounced on him, and Cloud lay under the assault leaden limbed and helpless, a fresh wash of lethargy surging over him.   
He saw it in Diablo’s eyes then, that glint of ice blue that belonged to someone else, that bit of Sephiroth that came surging forward at the scent of him. Diablo opened his mouth, then shut it, hands trembling on Cloud’s collar, fists tightening so hard that bones creaked. Fighting Sephiroth’s wants/needs and hating Cloud because he brought it out. Diablo threw back his head, neck corded with tension, and when he looked back down his eyes were his own.   
“You smell like piss,” he hissed, close to Cloud’s ear. “Fit for the likes of them. See how he likes that.” Then he rose and stepped back and there was a look on his face that taunted something inward. He waved a hand towards Cloud, sprawled at his feet.   
“Tonight, he’s yours. Make the most of it.” Then he turned his back and stalked off into the darkness to watch while his pack descended upon Cloud. 

* * *

Diablo sat in the dark; in a nook in the rocks above the grotto the wastelanders used as camp this night. He stared down at the flow of dirty humanity, at the surge and ebb of the pack as they fed. Their victim made no sound, no cry of torment as they played with him, but then Diablo wouldn’t expect it of a Soldier. He’d endure, and he’d lash back if he could, but it didn’t seem as if he had the capacity now, thanks to whatever perversion Shinra had visited upon him.   
Diablo could see flashes of pale skin amidst the dust-coated bodies of the trash that followed him. The laughter was shrill and excited over the exacting of pain.   
_There,_ he thought, _there’s what you wanted, degraded by the likes of them. Fuck with me, will you._ And something coiled inside his head, tense and insistent. He felt pain in his palm and looked down at the dark balls of his fists, clenched so hard his nails had drawn blood. He curled his fingers around rock instead, furious, seeing the tinge of blood around the edges of his vision, feeling that all too frequent urge to shed actual blood. To feel his hands crush bone and flesh, to let his blades slice into meat and turn a living vessel into nothing more than a carcass. ShinRa hadn’t given him those dark desires; he’d had them before they’d ever gotten their hands on him. And if nothing else they had given him legitimate reason to act on the impulses for a while. Before they’d turned on him.   
There was a cry from down below, an aborted sound of pain, quickly swallowed as the wastelanders got past Cloud’s defenses and Diablo’s mind wondered, dwelling on the debauchery of that fine flesh. Dwelling for a moment too long and a moment too wistfully on what he would do to that body while it was still alive, before he let his blades sink in and steal the life. Dwelling on the all the things he would do to make Cloud scream.  
And with his guard down, something swept in past the jagged walls of his defenses and he glared down at the crowd, the bolder ones inside the circle of onlookers, hands on something that was his. He remembered things from another lifetime. He remembered Cloud as a green recruit, on his knees between his legs, fine pink lips stretched around the base of his cock, thick, gold-tipped lashes fluttering on smooth cheeks as he worked to please him. He remembered the feel of his hair, sun-bright and soft in its disarray, the tension in the back of his neck as he rested his hand upon it, urging the boy to take his cock deeper, the sound of his own voice giving soft directions to a novice who so desperately wanted to please a man he worshipped. A boy so easy to manipulate into something he wasn’t quite certain he wanted to do.   
Swallow. He had instructed, when he’d come in that soft mouth, and being a company recruit and having learned to take orders as they came, and especially as they came from the great and the legendary high commander, Cloud had done as he was told. And he had patted him on the cheek like an obedient dog and sent him on his way. Back to Zack who was never the wiser. Back to Zack who had been the closest thing to a friend as he’d ever had, his contemporary and almost an equal and maybe that’s why he’d been so intent on having Cloud.   
But then it hadn’t been Zack who’d bested him. Not in the end.  
He didn’t mind them torturing Cloud. Didn’t mind seeing Cloud degraded and hurt. Having Cloud turn to him and beg for release from the torment would have been sheer bliss. He had a problem with their filthy cocks contaminating the warm places inside Cloud’s body, those places that were his and his alone, claimed long ago when innocence and naivety had still been at issue.   
Something shattered in his hand. A rock, shards of it piercing his palm. He looked down, surprised, intrigued for a moment by the thickness of the fingers, the size of the callused palm. It was not his hand - - it was not his body- - yet. And that thought brought forth a miasmic eruption of fury from the other mind that shared this host. _Get out. GetoutGetout! I’ll kill him. I’ll fucking kill him right now._

_Will you?_ he asked, a rare two-sided exchange of ideas. Killing Cloud was not abhorrent to him, but Cloud’s death - - that would be a private matter all his own, not to be shared, but not until his other needs had been sated, not until Cloud begged him for it and maybe not even then, if the mood struck, for it might be more satisfying to make him watch, broken and submissive, the appropriation of this world for greater things.  
The other awareness balked at that, too, and it became a struggle to hold on to conscious thought. Rawer emotion filtered in. A need for violence that had no higher purpose.   
There was meat down there, lots and lots of meat waiting to be dispatched. None of them from the tight-knit unit that had been family for the years of service working black-ops. All of his brothers-in-arms were dead. Slaughtered by the behemoth that had created them. All that was down there, writing in the firelight, glorying in their tiny cruelties, were worthless, squirming flesh packages for the taking.   
Diablo rose, growling thoughts and memories that were not his own still echoing in his head. He jumped down from his niche, landing in silence at the edge of the gathering. With red-tinged vision he saw prey. A man taking a piss against the rocks. He was there before the last spatter hit ground, hand around the thick neck, fingers closing in tight enough to stifle the cry of surprise. He dug his nails in, piercing flesh and muscle, sliding into wet warm meat and ripping out, taking everything north of the spine with him. Warm blood spurted, coating his hands and forearms as he let the twitching man drop with none the wiser. He stood there, breathing deep, cock hard in his pants as he held mangled flesh and cartilage in his hand. He tossed it aside and it hit ground with a splat, then brought bloody fingers to his mouth.   
He padded through the ranks of the vermin that dogged his heels, senses gone hyper, vision tunneled. He could smell the stink of accumulated sweat, could taste the acrid tang of their adrenaline, the flavor of their excitement, of violence, and blood, of sex and drugs that they partook of in their little niches, in the shadows of the rocks, in the small nomadic tents that they used when they weren’t living out of their vehicles, or right out in the open. They weren’t shy about it, having lost social standards long ago.   
He came to where they’d dragged Cloud, where they’d bound him, elbows cruelly pulled together and bound behind his back, chain taut around his wrists; knees and ankles bound together and lying in blood soaked dirt. They’d hurt him in the subtle, insidious ways they knew, patient still with their pain giving because he hadn’t broken yet and fueled their hungers with his screams. They hadn’t gotten to the raping yet, still getting off on the torture, so he lay there half naked, torso bare, pants pushed down enough to reveal the curve of his ass and the shadow of cringing genitalia between his legs. There were the beginnings of bruises on his body, impacts of fists or boots, a myriad of tiny cuts in sensitive places and the dotting of burned flesh where they’d been at him with lit cigarettes or pieces of metal or sticks heated in the fire.   
They cleared a space for Diablo when he came, backing away to see what he’d do and Cloud stared up at him, jaw clenched as tightly as his fists, back arched out of necessity from the position they’d bound him in, fine golden skin marred. The fight in his eyes was dulled, had been dulled since Shinra had given him over and Diablo canted his head, picking up a scent of something in the stench of Cloud’s sweat that smelled of drugs. Something they’d done to him to make him placid and it hadn’t worn off.   
He reached down with a bloodstained hand and grasped Cloud’s hair, dragging him to his knees, holding him there steady there when he felt balance falter. There was blood at the side of his mouth, a bruise low on his jaw, but overall they’d practiced amazing restraint in damaging his face. Diablo could understand the need to preserve some part of the beauty of the thing he was destroying. It made the desecration all the more satisfying sometimes, to watch a pretty face tighten with pain while he sliced open the belly and pulled out the guts, to watch that same face go slack, perfect and untouched while he mangled warm, wet insides.   
He shuddered a little, a spasm of excitement as the most cherished of his memories flashed behind his eyes. Of wetwork done for ShinRa in the dead of the night, of his own private pleasures, the ones he could take time with and savor. He knelt down, holding Cloud by the throat, fingers biting into the hollow places at the curve of his jaw. Blue eyes glared back at him. Defiant. Bruised. Diablo ran a thumb across a thin slice close enough to a nipple to cross pink flesh and brought the smear of blood to his lips. He ran his hand down the taut chest, the hard muscles of a stomach quivering a little with tension, to the soft package between Cloud’s legs. They’d cut him down there, too. Diablo felt the thick wetness of blood. If he pushed Cloud down and took that bruised flesh in his mouth, he’d devour it, tear off chunks of quivering meat with his teeth and that would end things too soon when the boy bled out. And when he did do it, it wouldn’t be under the watchful eyes of his dogs. It needed privacy, Cloud’s destruction. Of that he and the Snake inside him were of simular opinion.   
But he did need some kind of release now, something to ease the rock hard tension that had his cock vibrating against his belly. He had always preferred women. Always. But even without the demanding voice inside his head, he would have gotten off on Cloud Strife’s domination. The strong were always so much more satisfying to destroy.   
He rose, ripping his fly open, freeing his angry erection to slap against Cloud’s face. Cloud tried to turn his head, but Diablo caught his face, fingers biting into the hinge of his jaw, forcing those pretty lips open, revealing a beckoning cavity of darkness inside that mouth. He jammed his cock inside, felt the tightness of an unprepared throat squeeze his cockhead, felt Cloud gag and choke around his thickness and drew in a hissing, exhaultant breath.   
“C’mon,” he leaned down a little to whisper. “I know you can deep throat. He taught you how, didn’t he?”   
He remembered what that damned superior bastard Sephiroth remembered; Cloud on his knees, swallowing his cock, a desperate kid out to please. But wasn’t that always the way it had been for Sephiroth, having things fall into his lap. Promotions, the choice assignments, the choice recruits, while the rest of them had to break their backs to get company recognition and even then, the company paid them back with a bullet in the head from a long distance sniper. God, but he’d always hated the smug bastard, but the company never let the likes of the blackest of their black ops killers get close enough to test the limits of that hatred.   
And now the bastard was in his head. Conniving, coiling snake wanting what was his, with plans too grandiose for a simple man with simple needs to comprehend. Only he had what Sephiroth wanted now, and if he skull-fucked Cloud to death, that would be okay too, if it pissed the entity in his head off.   
He clenched his fist in Cloud’s hair, pale tendrils of the stuff poking out between his fingers, gripping hard to hold the kid’s head immobile while he drove his hips into his face, ramming his cock down his throat. Violent thrusts that scraped his cock against Cloud’s teeth, fueled by the struggle to keep Sephiroth from surging forth, drawn like blood to the surface of torn skin by Cloud’s subjugation.   
When he spilled finally, he pressed Cloud’s face hard against his belly, smashing the kid’s nose into his pubes while he filled his throat with come that bubbled back up and out of the kid’s nostrils as he choked on it. He kept him that way, fingers clawing into Cloud’s head, arms tense with the effort to fight the kid’s jerking efforts to avoid suffocation. It wasn’t until his face turned red with lack of oxygen and the fight went out of him that Diablo shoved him backwards. He lay gasping, Diablo’s seed dribbling from mouth and nose. The come was red-tinged, from vessels ruptured a little along the way. Diablo stared down, feeling a tinge of satisfaction from within at the sight of Cloud curled there, shuddering. He frowned, not liking the idea that this hadn’t been entirely his own notion.   
He jerked his eyes away, wanting distance of a sudden. Wanting a dark, private place to be. He fixed his gaze on one of the wastelanders, an alpha above the rest.   
“No mutilation,” he said softly, because that pleasure was for him alone. “Don’t mess with his face. I’ll want him later.”   
The wastelander nodded, understanding the price he’d personally pay if Diablo’s commands went unheeded.   
Diablo flexed his muscles and leapt into the rocky darkness above to think about the offer the Shinra bastard had made him.


	12. Chapter 12

They were limited in what they could do to him, cowed by Diablo’s departing command. Cloud could see the disappointment in their eyes, the one’s that loomed closest, the ones that had been the boldest in hurting him before. Left unchecked they would have killed him, ripped him apart in group frenzy as their minds became more clouded by drink and drugs, whatever control they possessed eroded by blood and passion and the scent of the kill. Ironic that the maddest dog among them was the one that put a check on their play.   
Cloud would have almost preferred the torture to the promise of what gleamed in their eyes now. The taste of Diablo’s come in his mouth left a bitter taste of what was to come. En masse, if he gauged the expressions of the faces ringing him correctly. He had two choices; he could go away, sink into a place inside his head and escape it, or try and force clear-headedness past the shock and endure, hoping a chance would present itself for escape.   
No choice really, all things considered. He hadn’t reached a point where death was a kinder option than survival and until then the basest part of his instinct would not let him retreat. Even inside his head.   
They circled him, threatening him like back ally gangbangers, some of them shifting erections under their trousers. He ignored them for the most part, while they were taunting but not touching, scanning the uneven jumble of rock towers and boulders that formed the walls of this grotto. The sky was lightening with oncoming morning, but he couldn’t see the sun and so couldn’t judge where exactly he might be in relation to it.   
They moved in then and he stopped trying to figure it out, kicking out when they grabbed at his bound feet, catching a man who’d bent to grasp his ankles in the forehead, before they slammed the butt of a rifle against the side of his head. He reeled, loosing control of his limbs for a moment as bright pain blossomed behind his eyes. It gave them the time they needed to get a good hold of his legs and drag him across dry, pebble strew ground to a square of canvas.   
One of them fell on him then, and Cloud could feel the hot slap of an erect cock against his thigh as the man struggled to turn him onto his stomach. There were others crowding in on him, hands on his torso, fingers in his hair. Too close, inciting panic that wanted to spiral into hysteria or sheer unadulterated terror. He clenched his jaw, fighting for some semblance of control, trying with every iota of will power he had not to struggle against them, hoping they’d untie his legs if he didn’t resist. Just untie his legs and it would easier on them to accomplish their rapes. And it would give him a fighting chance.   
But someone else, several someone’s took exception to waiting in line behind the man pawing Cloud, and with a chorus of indignant cries, he was pulled off, his right for first go vehemently protested. A brawl ensued, which the others joined, as inclined to fight as they were to fuck and Cloud lay passively at the foot of it, trying to calm his racing heart, trying to push back the nausea.   
A woman knelt down next to him, the one from before, not a threat to her male counterparts and left unmolested as she put hands on him. She wasn’t the only woman he’d seen amongst them, but she was the boldest, the least used and broken.   
“They’ll hash it out soon enough, baby,” she whispered, mouth close to his ear, her hands running across his taut shoulders, down his ribs to his hips. “And they’ll fuck you raw. Even some o’the one’s that don’t like boys’ll have a go, ‘cause that’s how men are, y’know. Always out to prove somethin’. ‘cept for Diablo, he don’t have to prove nothin’.” She shivered a little, obviously finding something in Diablo’s bloody insanity to her liking. She licked the side of Cloud’s mouth, sucked on his bottom lip, but he kept his jaw clenched, refusing anything else.   
“I can taste him,” she murmured. “He spilled a load down your throat, didn’t he? Lucky boy.”  
He couldn’t help but shiver then and gag a little at the reminder.   
“Get offa him, bitch. I’m first.” The big one, the one that Diablo had warned of the boundaries of their treatment of him, advanced and the woman scampered away to hang with the crowd of hungry onlookers, no few of them bloodied from the contest of who got a go at him first. He dropped down hard upon Cloud’s chest, considerable weight pressing Cloud’s bound arms into canvas covered ground. It hurt. The man laughed, thrusting unzipped crotch against Cloud’s chin, slapping him once when he bared his teeth and growled low in his throat.   
“Little bitch is picky all of sudden on what goes in his mouth.” The man quipped to the watching crowd and a flutter of cruel, expectant laughter wafted through the grotto.   
“He ain’t got teeth between his legs.” Somebody called and a chorus of cruder speculation and suggestion followed.   
Cloud tucked his chin, letting hair obscure his eyes, but the man wasn’t interested in looking at his face, just scooted back to crouch over him, big hands biting into his hips as he flipped him over onto his belly, jerking his pants down to mid-thigh, then settling to his knees on the canvas, thighs on either side of Cloud’s legs. He heard the slither of a blade sliding from a sheath, glanced up through his hair and caught a sideways flash of the big man holding an eight-inch hunting knife. Instinct said react. Buck the bastard off and put distance between himself and that blade.   
Reason told him otherwise.   
Just keep still. Just endure, because they weren’t going to cut him worse than they already had and risk Diablo’s wrath, and bound as he was, he wasn’t up to much of an argument anyway.   
The man leaned forward, the knife pressed against the back of Cloud’s neck, the thick length of his cock pressed against the cleft of his ass. He could feel the bite of belt buckle and buttons, proving the man had only stripped down enough to get the job done.   
“You’re gonna like this, bitch,” the man sneered, loud enough for the onlookers to hear and appreciate his wit. He dry humped a few times for emphasis, before calling for whiskey. Someone tossed him a half empty bottle and he took a swig, before pouring a warm stream of it across Cloud’s lower back and onto his ass.   
Breath came hard, on the heels of a heartbeat that had started to thud frantically in his chest. God, if he cried out, he’d egg them on - - if he sobbed in utter frustration/rage/terror he’d amuse them and shame himself and he would never, ever give them that satisfaction.   
The big body pressed down upon him, the fingers of one hand digging into his buttocks while the man held onto his cock in the other, trying to force his way past clenched muscle and the disadvantage of legs bound tight together.   
“Gor, but he’s tight as a ten year old virgin,” the man grunted laughter. “You stop fighting me, hear, else I’ll stick my knife up there and loosen you up permanent like.”  
“Go ahead,” Cloud ground out past clenched teeth, wondering if they heard the tremor he felt in his voice. “Maybe he’ll thank you for it and not spill your guts.”  
The man on his back growled and a fist drove into Cloud’s side. Intense pain spiraled out from his kidneys. The wastelander snatched up the knife he’d dropped to the canvas and slammed the hilt against the side of Cloud’s skull. Cloud gasped at the ringing throb from an impact that might have put another man out for the count. But he’d suffered worse, by stronger assailants and kept his perspective. He went limp regardless, while the man   
pushed himself up and back, far enough to slip the knife through the rope at Cloud’s knees, then twisting around to slice through the bonds at his ankles  
“Get his pants off and spread the bitch’s legs- -“ The man barked, pride damaged by his lack of initial success and the snickering opinions of his prowess that wafted through the crowd. He swung one thigh over Cloud’s legs to give the men scurrying in to grab at Cloud’s ankles space to fulfill the request.   
There was a flash of a moment, when the weight was off his thighs, before the hands could reach out and grasp his legs, that he was half way free of restraint. An eye blink of an opening that might have passed him by if whatever was dulling his system was a tad bit stronger, if he’d been just a little too weak from their attentions to make his body move when he desperately needed it to.   
He rolled, towards the man waiting to rape him, instead of away, throwing that big body off balance and kicking out with adrenaline fueled strength at the closest of the ones bearing down on him. His aim was good. Foot connected with chest, a solid impact that sent the man sprawling back into the ones behind him. He kept rolling, right to his feet, barely aware of the pain on the soles of bare feet where they’d burned him after they’d taken his boots. Ignore the pain and maybe survive; an ingrained habit. He slammed into a body making a rush at him, made a leap for the hood of a parked vehicle and rebounded off it, landing badly, all his usual grace just evaporated. Goddamned pants around his thighs weren’t helping either.   
They came after him, a horde of dirty, ruthless animals, spilling over and around the array of parked vehicles. A bullet ricocheted off the armor plating of an old military truck that he darted past and he flinched, cursing himself for hardly being aware of its approach, much less having any active hand in having avoided it. That had been sheer luck.   
An explosion made the ground tremble and pieces of rock exploded down, peppering the ground and pinging off the hoods of vehicles. God, where the hell were they aiming? They were crying out behind him and some of them had stopped the pursuit, staring off to the northwest where something brighter than the sun flared for a moment, and after half a breath the ground shook with the impact of explosion that hadn’t originated from the band of miscreants after Cloud. He dodged into the shadowy crevices with the distraction, trying to get his pants up far enough not to trip him during a crucial moment.  
There was a rapid-fire blast of gunfire that echoed in the grotto, but not close by. More fire and the growl of engines starting. He sidled out of the crevice and saw the backs of men running for weapons and vehicles. A faint green flare of a materia blast lit up the sky north of him. He shut his eyes for a second, shoulder against the support of a rock and wondered whom he had to thank for that bit of luck.   
A second of relief was all he allowed himself. He scanned the area looking for some advantage and found it in a beat up old car that had been jerry rigged and outfitted to make it wasteland capable. Somebody had welded metal spikes to the sides, and sixteen-inch blades in the hub of the wheel wells that would undoubtedly play havoc with the tires of any vehicle the thing drove up close to. He had another purpose in mind. He skidded over, dropping down to the ground beside the car, scooting up to the jagged blade and hoping to hell he didn’t slice his arms to the bone trying to saw through the rope binding his elbows.   
He only felt a few stinging cuts by the time the rope was scored through enough to break the remaining strands. He rolled over, onto his back and worked his chained wrists under his hips, got one leg through and then other without having to resort to dislocating a shoulder to do it. The chain around his wrists wasn’t coming off as easy as the rope, though.  
Fine. He’d make do. He might not be particularly graceful with it, but he could pick up a weapon and use it if he had to.   
The wastelanders were heading north, those on foot weeding around the vehicles that were gunning their way through the narrow passages between rocky outcroppings. Whatever was happening was originating from that direction. Much as he’d like to find out what, he wasn’t up to fighting his way through their ranks, which meant finding another, less crowded route of escape.   
“Hey!!” someone roared, and a body came at him from between close-parked vehicles. A big man with a hunting knife. Having an affinity for blades, he recognized the knife before he did the man. The son of a bitch who’d been doing his best to rape him before he’d made a break for it. He leaned there against the car and let the man come; ducked out of the path of the blade as the man lunged at him, slow and clumsy, relying on his size and his attitude to freeze a victim with fear like so many of his ilk.   
Even beat to shit and sluggish, Cloud tracked his movements like they were diagramed for him, caught the thick wrist with one bound hand and jerked it up and around, using his attackers own momentum to swing him around and into the side of the rusty old car. The welded on spikes in the door impaled the body, but not deep enough for a kill. At least not a quick one. The man screamed, shoving himself backwards and falling to the ground, bleeding in half a dozen places from knee to lower torso. Cloud kicked him hard in the head that the writhing ceased. He bent and retrieved the knife, and had to put a hand to the hood of the car to catch his balance when vision spun. He shook his head fiercely, trying to fight it off.   
Up was the way to go, where he could get a better idea of what was happening, where he could avoid other wastelanders coming at him when his reflexes weren’t operating at a hundred percent. The gunfire was persistent, interspaced by the roar of something more powerful. The ground shook twice as he was scrambling up the tumble of rocks that surrounded this grotto.   
Something larger than a bullet whizzed by him when he’d gained the top and he hit the ground as it impacted behind him, exploding the side of a taller rock tower and sending fist sized chunks of stone flying through the air. He curled, protecting his head and luck or maybe his capricious guardian angels protected him from getting hit by any of the debris. He got to his feet and the difficulty of that simple act screamed discord in his head. He hadn’t taken that much damage, not nearly enough to account for the bone-weary ache in his body or the sluggish reflexes that made him curl into fetal protection instead of dodge to avoid a batch of mindless rock ricochets.   
He saw the origin of the fire from his vantage. Two motley trucks behind a narrow band of rocks protruding up from the flat wasteland beyond the tumbled grotto like the fin of a shark. Wastelander vehicles were circling, returning fire, pinning the attackers down, and taking damage in the process. He caught sight of two demolished cars, smoking and belching flames from ignited fuel sources. A third went up in a ball of fire as something whizzed out from the rock shelter below and caught it head on.   
Cloud got a flash of a distant figure with what looked like a shoulder held rocket launcher before the man hunched back down to take cover. Another glance of rapid muzzle flash as a bigger form stood up and peppered the circling wastelanders with artillery fire.   
Barett. Even from a distance, that broad body was unmistakable, which meant Cid and Vincent were down there and probably Tifa unless they’d knocked her cold and locked her in a closet to keep her away. Cloud felt a little surge of optimism a moment before the sky lit up with a focused materia blast that came close to knocking him off his feet with the backwash. It shook the ground like a 4-point earthquake.   
He saw Diablo, arm blades extended, disappear down amidst the maze of rocks, heard gun-fire, high powered rounds slamming into rock and imploding, before Diablo sprang up out of the rocks two hundred yards away, deflecting bullets with the deadly arm blades as he rebounded. The source of the fire came up after him like an avenging demon out of the shadows of the tumbled rock maze, guns blazing in both hands.   
Vincent crouched atop one precarious rocky spire and fired the long barreled gun in his left hand while the one in his right glowed faintly with gathering energy as he drew on the materia nestled within its frame. Diablo was quicker in the gathering of his energy and he let loose a blaze of green energy that Vincent launched himself skyward to avoid. He fired off the materia laced shot from Cerberus on his upward arc.   
Diablo leapt back, barely avoiding the blast, but the rock crumbled out from beneath his feet, victim to the impact, even as the rock tower Vincent had perched upon exploded and crumbled. Vincent came down on the edge of the crumbling landslide, disappearing into the shadows of the crevice even as Diablo did and all good sense aside, Cloud scrambled that way himself. Got to the edge in time to see Vincent dart backwards out of Diablo’s reach, firing as he did, bounding up the precarious side of the fractured stone edifice with Diablo close behind. He scored a hit, the bullet tearing through Diablo’s shoulder. But it didn’t stop him. He simply stopped defending altogether and put all his energy and speed into closing the distance between himself and Vincent.   
Diablo’s armblades were moving so fast, it was hard to follow the motions. One lucky slice tore through Vincent’s cloak and maybe scored on flesh underneath. All of which threw Vincent just enough off his game to hinder his usual blinding speed. And Diablo was on him. Stabbing down with an arm blade, which damn well did sink into flesh, carrying Vincent to the ground under him in a flutter of cloak.   
“No!” Cloud cried and ran that way, figuring he could make the leap that would take him across the crumbled crevice between himself and Diablo and Vincent and not particularly caring at the moment, if he was at a terrible, miserable disadvantage.   
Somebody else reacted first. A true-shot mini-missile that arrowed up from below and caught Diablo dead on in the chest, carrying him two body lengths backwards before it exploded with oddly muffled shockwaves. There was Cid, having covered half the distance between where Cloud had originally seen him and the edges of the rock grotto. He took cover behind the twisted bulk of a wrecked Wastelander vehicle, the rocket launcher still balanced on his shoulder. Cloud could half hear his distant whoop of triumph over the ringing in his ears. Then the air vibrated with gathering power a moment before Diablo propelled himself up and out of the rubble, a car-sized chunk of rock held over his head that he launched towards Cid’s shelter. It hit with a sickening screech of metal, throwing up a cloud of dust and debris and there was nothing after but settling dirt and the still prominent sound of conflict.   
An articulate sound of fury/grief came from Vincent. He surged to his feet, eyes glowing redder than Cloud could remember seeing as he stared down at the rubble Cid had dissapeared beneath. A deadly distraction, because Diable damned sure wasn’t prepared to give him that moment of grief. The breath-stealing blast of materia Diable released hit Vincent dead on.   
The shock waves of it pitched Cloud off his feet, and the ground gave way beneath him. He slid half a dozen yards down the crumbled incline, scraping his feet bloody trying to stop the decent and hold onto his pilfered knife at the same time.   
Something brought him up short, rough fingers digging into his shoulder and flinging him backwards. Rock shards bit into his back when he landed, but he hardly felt the pain, trying to scramble backwards and gain his feet as Diablo padded up the slope towards him. The man’s eyes were mako green, his face twisted into something that might have been grim humor, even though blood trailed down his arm from a clean bullet wound high on his shoulder. His body was marked with a dozen small bleeding cuts.   
“C’mon,” he growled. “Use your little knife on me, boy. Make me bleed.”  
Cloud glared, wondering what it would take to get through the bastard’s defenses. Not a thing he could do with the puny little blade he held, not with the man having shields that could withstand a dead on missile blast or the sort of materia shot that Vincent was capable of with Cerberus.   
“No?” Diablo sneered and lunged down, faster than Cloud could presently avoid and plunged the tip of one arm blade into the stone close enough to Cloud’s head to sever a few strands of hair.   
“When I finish killing your friends, what will you have then?” he breathed against Cloud’s throat, teeth grazing the skin of his jaw.   
“Son of a bitch!” Cloud ground out, pushing at Diablo’s chest. Diablo sat back, staring down at him with canted head and power-infused green eyes. Sephiroth’s eyes. Sephiroth’s wants and needs and joy at seeing him in this condition with the grief surging up in him hot as new-spilt blood.   
There was a rush of power, something dark and cold that flared over him and left goose pimpled flesh in its wake. It wasn’t Diablo or Sephiroth, who both exuded deadly hot flashes of energy. It was something else, that Diablo/Sephiroth must have felt too, because he frowned, jerking the blade out of the stone with a grunt and rising, turning towards the still settling mountain of rubble where Vincent had gone down.  
Rock shifted, sand seeped into newly created crevices. Something rose, a tall, odd silhouette. There was a leathery snap as what might have been wings unfolded and Cloud caught the details of something he’d only ever seen once and then under very, very bad circumstances. Great veined wings, more like those of a reptile than a bird, a flesh/bone crown of thorny protuberances around a shadowy oval of face, the eyes of which glowed like some internal reactor was fusing into overdrive.  
“Shit,” he murmured because he wasn’t certain that thing down there recognized the difference between friend and foe and it was exuding energy of a malevolent sort that had the hairs on the back of his arms standing up.  
“Well . . . damn - -“ Diablo murmured a fraction of a second before the demon that dwelled within Vincent’s was simply there, slamming into Diablo with enough force to send rock gysering out like stone waves on either side as they cut a trench through the slope.   
Cloud rolled over and tried to get enough leverage on the crumbly slope to gain his feet, half got there when energy blossomed out, churning red, cold/flames interspaced by zagging currents of materia laced/Jenova enhanced power. The backlash of it shook the world, or at least the little portion of it centered in this fractured grotto. It knocked Cloud off his feet and back down the newly created slope. He hit bottom and rolled for cover as rock showered down, falling in upon itself. Another blasting reverberation of massive energy, but not as powerful as the first concentric wave of it. Then silence, save for the rasp of his own breathing and the settling of rock. Distantly he could hear the rumble of engines, retreating. The pop of sporadic gunfire, also distant.  
Then the damned demon was back, cutting out the sun, swooping down, fast enough that its form seemed to flicker like a film with missing frames. It stood there, looming over him, semi-transparent membrane of wings blocking out the light, red eyes glowing like the heart of a volcano. Before he could quite decide whether this might turn out to be a bigger problem for him than the one that had just retreated, it crouched, talons plunging into his side, where the old wound was, digging into his insides with a swift searing agony.   
It was over in a matter of seconds, bloody claws dropping something onto his chest with a small, wet plop. Cloud stared down at the bloody thing, small and oblong, too smooth and regular of shape to be a thing that belonged in his body. The air around the demon sizzled, energy fluxuating, collapsing inwards like dust sucked into a void, and then it was Vincent who crouched there, amber eyed, slack-mouthed and past his limits. He crumbled, a loose collection of limbs and tattered cloak, on the uneven slope next to Cloud.   
Cloud lay there, tense and wary, staring up at the ravaged cascade of rock waiting for the other shoe to fall. It never came. Diablo didn’t appear. After another moment, when he let out pent up breath, the aches began to make themselves known. Hurts he’d been ignoring for too long came crashing down on him and he shut his eyes, biting back a groan.   
“Vincent?” It took effort to move his arms and nudge the still figure beside him. No response. His forearm came back with a smear of fresh blood soaked through Vincent’s cloak. Or maybe it was his own, God knew he was leaking blood from enough places.  
There was the sound of sliding rock somewhere behind him. The grunts of a body struggling up the mess Diablo and Vincent had made of the rocky grotto. He’d really rather have laid there, rocks poking into his back or not, but he made himself roll and push past Vincent’s cloak to the holstered gun at his hip. He pulled it out, twisting around to aim at the figures just topping the shattered rise.   
Tifa stopped dead and two men in WRO colors clambered up behind her, rifles raised at the threat of the weapon aimed their way. Tifa slapped the muzzle of the gun closest her down and Cloud let out a pent up breath and letting Cerberus fall.   
“You look like crap,” she said, forcing a wry smile.  
He had to laugh. Almost. It came out aborted and humorless. He laid the gun down, careful of Vincent’s most valued possession and dropped his head onto The arm across Vicent’s chest.   
* * *

“Goddamnit, don’t try and lift the thing . . . dig!” Cid peered up out of a too small hole at Barett’s sweating face. He was wedged in a crater made when the gas tank of the car he’d been taking shelter behind had exploded. That was the only thing that had saved his life when the mini-van sized chunk of rock had come hurtling down upon him. A bum shoulder didn’t make digging his way out much fun and he’d only just scratched at the surface when Barett and a bunch of late-arriving WRO grunts sent courtesy of Reed after they’d gotten him to use the WRO’s hi-tech toys to scan the vast area outside of the city to find the damned big collection of Wasteland bandits.   
With outside help, an opening big enough for a lean man wiggle out of appeared. Cid reached out an arm and Barett latched on and dragged him out. He sat there afterward, squinting up at the big rock that had almost flattened him and shook for a while, waving Barett and the WRO members away while he got hold of his nerves with the help of a little nicotine. Since the gunfire had stopped and there were no careening wasteland vehicles circling, not to mention the high-end materia blasts coming from the jumble of rocks that made up the grotto, he figured he’d missed the hind-end of the battle. Since they were alive, they must have come out on the winning side.   
He forced his aching body up at the sound of rocks tumbling and edged around the big rock in time to see Tifa top the rise, supporting Cloud with a shoulder under his arm. He sighed with relief until he saw Barret behind them with Vincent in his arms, all loose limbs and trailing cloak.   
He couldn’t even come up with an appropriate curse, just spit the cigarette out and started towards them, a strangled curl of dread in his gut.   
“It’s okay, Cid. He’s alive.” Tifa assured him.   
They staggered down the hill, Barett slipping and sliding with Vincent’s weight in his arms, Cloud exhibiting very little of his normal grace. One of the WRO’ers ran up fingers on the earpiece he was listening to.   
“Reports are that they’re scattering. WRO reinforcements engaged a group of them east of here. Still, there are too many of them to keep track of.”  
“Well that’s just fucking great.” Cid grumbled, as Barett made flat ground with Vincent. “Where were those damned reinforcements when we needed them?”   
He knew the answer of course. Reeve had done the best he could on short notice. Gathering what troops he could in the Midgar area when the majority of the World Restoration Organization forces were scattered over three continents and God knew how many islands between here and the end of the civilized world.   
Cid peeled back blood soaked material from Vincent’s dangling right arm found a nasty, bone-deep gash. There were other sources of blood, hidden beneath layers of black cloth, but he’d damned sure seen Vincent take worse and still function.   
“It was Chaos,” Cloud said softly, having separated himself from Tifa’s support, standing there bloody and bruised, bare-chested and barefoot. “He went out when it went away.”  
“Shit,” Cid breathed. It had been a damned long time since that particular demon had surfaced within Vincent. “Somebody get the Goddamned truck,” he bellowed, angry and scared and covering it with belligerence.   
They got their own little company loaded up in Barett’s truck, which had survived the assault admirably sans a few dozen new bullet holes.   
“Hospital?” Barett asked and Cid snorted, having had enough of hospitals for the time being. Besides which, Vincent wasn’t exactly your normal human being. Cid would patch him up with Tifa’s help and he’d heal with spooky alacrity once his mutated immune system started kicking in.   
Cloud would, too, thanks to a different set of ShinRa alterations, through from the look on the kid’s face as he settled down in the back of the truck, there were other infections festering in his thoughts. He’d looked battered and beat to shit when Cid had found him - - or vice versa - - in the desert outside Gold Saucer. There was something else in his eyes now. Something bruised and shaken that went beyond the physical damage so apparent on his body. Like they’d jarred something loose and stomped it to bits while they’d had him and God knew from the look of the injuries and the placement of some of them, they’d been enjoying themselves a little too much with him.   
“Is the bastard dead?” Cid asked, the first time he’d ventured that question. He was almost afraid to hear the answer. Cloud flinched a little, lashes fluttering down to hide his eyes for a moment.   
“Cloud?” Tifa prompted.  
“I don’t know. I didn’t - - see.” He sat there a while, eyes focused on something he turned over and over in his fingers, then. “No. Vincent’s transformation took him by surprise. He did the smart thing - - he took off to regroup. I would have. Sephiroth would - -“  
He shuddered and held up the thing he was holding. A capsule, no bigger than the end of his pinky, grey and innocuous.   
Tifa leaned forward, taking it from Cloud’s fingers. “What is it?”  
Cloud shrugged, almost touching the source of most of the blood staining his side and belly. The same damn injury he’d sported since they’d hooked up in the desert, only the stitches were busted and it was leaking fresh trickles of red. “It was inside me. Chaos took it out. I don’t know how - - “   
He trailed off, looking more than a little spooked. Cid could damn well guess how. He’d bet his last gil that it hadn’t been there before Rufus Shinra got his hands on Cloud.   
“A tracker?” Cid ventured.  
“Or a sedative, maybe?” Tifa furrowed her brows. “After all, you didn’t put up much of a fight during all this.”  
Cloud stared out the back of the truck obviously not wanting to partake in the theories. He didn’t say another word the whole bumpy, hot trip back. And Vincent didn’t stir, even when Cid and Tifa started looking for injuries and poking and prodding in the process. They bandaged the worst of the worst with what they had in the field med-kit, but it was too rough a ride for particular work. Cloud wouldn’t let them near enough him to doctor any of his hurts, very much to Tifa’s disgust. She wasn’t shy about calling him a fool for the reluctance, lacking a great deal of her normal tact, but then they’d all been through a damned close fire-fight, and come out with wounded on their side, so nerves were stretched taut and politics gone out the window. And maybe she was more than a little frustrated having dealt with Cloud’s eccentricities and Cloud’s stand-offishness for longer than most women would have had the patience for.   
Cid doubted the kid paid her much heed, having that hollow, shell-shocked look in his eyes for the better part of the ride home; the sort of look men got when they’d been pushed beyond their limits.   
Cloud helped Barett with Vincent when they got home. The smoke still lingered, and there were a few smoke-damaged patches of black on the walls of the upper level near the back where the bar joined the warehouse beside it, but all in all, it was a haven. They put Vincent in one of the kid’s rooms and Tifa went for the extensive med-kit she kept on hand.   
Cloud disappeared into his own room and shut the door behind him. Barett went out to confer with their WRO contacts and see what there was to find out about the movement of the wastelanders. That many bandits out and about around the city and there was bound to be fallout. Hell they probably would have been easier to deal with all collected together in one massive rag-tag army. At least then, they’d know where they were all at.   
* * *  
The water sluiced off his body carrying dirt and blood and more noxious filth with it down the drain at Cloud’s feet. He couldn’t get it hot enough to stop the shivering once it had started. So he stood there, skin turning pink from the hot water, hands pressed to the tiles under the shower head and tried to escape the looping images that kept flashing through his head. He opened his mouth, letting hot water stream in, rinsed and spat and did it again and still couldn’t shake the taste of urine and come. His stomach rebelled, nausea rising in the back of his throat. The cramps came so hard that he dropped to his knees in the shower stall and heaved up thin streams of acidy tasting liquid, but nothing more. He hadn’t anything on his stomach to expel.   
The water washed it away, along with the rest. He heard Tifa knock at the door, a soft inquiry. An apology for snapping at him before, which he didn’t quite recall her doing, then she went away. The water turned luke warm. He reached up and turned off the shower. Pushed himself to his feet and looked down at the various abuses on his body. Maybe the capsule had contained some time-released sedative, God knew why else he’d lain there and taken the punishment. He half recalled the fogginess of thought, the sluggishness of body and knew those weaknesses were gone now. Even the various hurts were brighter than they had been before, dulled by whatever had dulled his reflexes. He slapped adhesive bandage patches on the worst of the open cuts so they wouldn’t rub raw under his clothing, then pulled on a pair of well-worn, loose black jeans and a black t-shirt with some faded band logo that he’d bought second hand. He searched out clean socks and pulled them on over the burns on his feet, then found an old pair of boots with a patched over hole in one sole that he hadn’t worn for years. The simple act of walking was going to be a sharp reminder of the wastelander’s attentions for a few days to come. His best boots were out there in the wasteland somewhere or worse yet on the feet of some worthless bandit and that pissed him off. God knew where his sword was.   
No, scratch that. Rufus Shinra would know. Diablo and his pack of degenerates hadn’t had it or Cloud would have seen. It was too damned big to miss, which meant it was still in the care of Rufus’s security where he’d stupidly left it when he’d gone to see the smug bastard. Cloud might seethe over the loss of a good pair of boots, but he’d tear through heaven and earth to get back his best sword.   
Most of his gear was still here. Shoulder guard, gloves, belts, and secondary sheath. He put it on, a piece at a time, pulling the gloves on last, hesitating on the right one as the red welts around that wrist caught his eye. He shuddered, caught off his guard as a new flood of the old memories washed over him. Was aware vividly of the taste again in his mouth like a fist in the face. He staggered to the toilet and dry heaved, and sobbed, dry eyed, in fury at his weakness.   
Focus on the purpose. Focus on the here and the now instead of the past which was over and done with and out of his control. Find Rufus Shinra and get his sword back, first and foremost, because he needed that weapon if he stood a chance against Diablo/Sephiroth. Take down anything that Rufus tried to throw in his way to keep him from coming. Wring the truth out of the son of a bitch - - hell, he wasn’t even sure he needed the truth. Maybe just the satisfaction of kicking Rufus’s skinny ass would be enough to wash away some of the hurt.


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter 13

Barret, Cid and Tifa were in the bar when Cloud came down, a bottle of shared whiskey on the table between them. Every eye fixed on him like he was some walking oddity when he appeared. He hated the looks and the expressions of concern, as if he were fragile and wounded and ought to be holed up somewhere licking his wounds instead of going about getting retribution for them.   
Tifa stood up, her hands flat on the table, her brows drawn as she took in the gear and the empty sheath on his back. She had a shallow score below her jaw that he hadn’t noticed on the way back from the wastes. More of a scrape that a slice, but it made his gut clench regardless, the sight of that small wound, when she could have gotten so much worse.   
Vincent had. He could still see Vincent’s blood on his hands, could feel the warm wetness of it on his clothes as it leaked from cool flesh. Cloud set his jaw and took the last few steps, sidling past crates they’d moved out from the smoke damaged warehouse.  
“Where you think you’re going?” Barret demanded, flesh and blood hand stained with the grease and oil he was using to clean the grafted gun arm.   
“Vincent?” Cloud asked, not bothering with an answer.  
“He’s still unconscious,” Tifa said. “What are you going to do, Cloud?”  
Cloud looked to Cid for a more comprehensive answer to the Vincent worry. Cid shrugged, his arm back in the sling, the dregs of a filterless cigarette clutched between his lips.   
“He’ll snap out of it. When his demons hit - - specially that one - - takes a lot out of him.”  
Cloud nodded, moving towards the door. They weren’t happy about that, not knowing his intentions. Barret’s chair scraped against the floor and Tifa moved to intercept him, fingers latching on to one of the sheath straps. He had no choice to but to hesitate; either that or muscle his way out of her grip. And he wouldn’t do that to her.   
“Damn it, Cloud!” Her cheeks were red, her eyes angry. Scared maybe. He wasn’t sure which; didn’t really have the mental energy at the moment, to try and figure it out when he was having a hard enough time keeping his own demons at bay.   
“Where are you going?”  
“To the garage to get a sword.” That was truth enough.   
“And then?” She demanded, not put off by his reluctance to share.   
He shrugged and got shoved back against the doorframe by Barret’s big hand for that bit of reticence. “We just finished getting our asses shot to hell for you, boy! You damn sure better start lettin’ us in on what shit’s gonna hit the fan next.”  
He glared up at Barret, having to tilt his head back against the door to meet the big man’s narrow stare this close up. His personal comfort space was shallow at the best of times; today he was feeling particularly sensitive. He’d had too many people, too close to him recently not to react when Barret leaned over and tightened his grip on his shoulder.   
“Back off.” He knocked Barret’s hand away and shoved him a step backwards. Tifa laid her hands on Barret’s thick arm when he bristled, growling at Cloud.   
“Cloud,” she said levelly, reasonably. “Whether you want to admit it or not, you’re hurt, you’re tired and you can’t do this alone. Let us do what friends do and help you.”  
He looked past her, focusing on the slow moving shadow of the lazy ceiling fan.  
“The cards are stacked against you, kid,” Cid drawled from the table, as interested in the whiskey in his glass as he seemed to be with the standoff at the door. “Hell, its probably a rigged game, considering the players. Better get smart and start hiding some aces of your own up your sleeve if you wanna break even.”  
“I’m going to get my sword,” Cloud said softly.   
“You already said - -” Barret started in irritation, but Tifa shushed him with her nails in his arm and he shut up, glowering.   
“What sword?” she asked.  
“The one Rufus Shinra has.”  
“Okay,” she pulled out her gloves and began putting them on. “So I’ll drive then.”  
“I got the window seat,” Barret declared and Cloud shut his eyes for a moment, not sure if he felt trapped or grateful.   
“I’m thinkin’ if it’s just Rufus and some Turks you guys are plannin’ on playing with, I’ll sit this one out.” Cid patted his immobilized arm. “‘Sides I’m a little too drunk to be playing with sharp objects.”  
Cloud walked down to the garage while Tifa and Barret got the truck. The smell of oils and mechanics made the absence of Fenrir sharper, he could only hope the bike was still safe and sound in the Gold Saucer parking facility. His swords were also decreasing in number. His best pair were in Shinra possession, not to the mention the one Reno had appropriated weeks ago when Cloud had been taken into police custody after the first wastelander attack on him. He picked up an old sword. A heavy weapon with a well-worn grip and good balance to the three and half foot blade. Though time and countless battles had scarred and nicked the flat of the metal, the edge was razor sharp and suitable for his purposes. He slid it into the sheath on his back and walked outside as the truck pulled up with Tifa at the wheel. Barret stepped out and let Cloud slid into the middle. Cloud loosened the sheath and rested it between his legs while he rode.   
They parked a block and a half away from Rufus’s building, got out and walked the rest of the way. There was a lot of security. More than there had been last time Cloud had visited. The street was lined with the black ATV’s that Rufus’s private security used and there were a lot of Blue’s loitering in the area.   
If what Reno had told Vincent was correct and Rufus had made some sort of deal with Diablo, then Cloud had to wonder just who they were guarding against. They stopped across the street from the building and Cloud stared up at the gleaming glass of the penthouse. The two outside glass elevators rose and fell on their tracks, but only went as high as the floor below the penthouse suits. Rufus’s private domain could only be reached via the inside elevator and then only by someone with an access key to the top floor. Cloud wasn’t in the mood for a polite request for audience.   
He watched one of the glass elevators reach bottom and through tinted glass could see the doors open to the inside lobby and people get on and off.   
“If the two of you go into the lobby and get security’s attention, I think I see my way in.”  
“How much attention?” Tifa asked.  
“Enough to get them all focused on you. Don’t start a war.” He gave Barret a look. The two of them against fifty Shinra Security elite and probably a few Turks to boot were not odds he liked if he was going to be occupied elsewhere.   
“What? You saying I don’t know how to behave in polite company, Spikey?”  
Cloud canted a brow at him, thinking very much that.   
“We can do it,” Tifa said. “Be careful and don’t trust him.”  
He let them stride across the street first, heard Barret’s deep voice demanding to see the Corporate Asshole in charge because they had a complaint to lodge. The blues started moving that way. There was a struggle at the door as security tried to hinder Barret and Tifa’s entrance and Barret and Tifa defied authority and got past the gleaming bronze and glass doors. The blues were all zeroed in on them then and Cloud padded across the street unnoticed, jumped lightly onto the hood of a black ATV and used that to launch himself up onto the top of one of the outside elevator cars just beginning its ascent.   
He crouched on the bronze elevator roof, watching the reflection of the elevator flash by on the sun-glazed panes of passing windows. The car stopped repeatedly on its journey upwards. The end of the line was two floors away and above that the smooth bank of glass windows that made up the outer wall of Rufus’s penthouse.   
Cloud stood, sliding the sword from its sheath, and a few feet shy of the top, he launched himself up and over, swinging the weight of the sword against the thick glass and feeling it shatter inwards under impact backed by his momentum.   
He landed easily, boots crunching down on jagged panes of shattered glass. A potted plant had spilled over and brown dirt joined sparkling slivers of glass on Rufus’s white carpet. Rufus himself was at his desk, his cell phone halfway to his ear, a momentary mask of shock on his face.   
Cloud sheathed the sword in one smooth motion and stalked into the room. Rufus stood, lifting his hands, the forgotten phone still clenched in the fingers of the right.   
“Cloud - - Cloud, I’m relieved to see you’re - -“ Rufus didn’t quite get the last of that lie past his lips before Cloud pounced, backhanding him into the wall behind his desk.   
A picture bounced off the wall and hit the floor beside him. The cane tumbled to the floor next to the desk.   
“Damn it, Cloud - - Wait – “ Rufus was trying to push himself up.   
“You son of a bitch!” Cloud was on him, hauling him up by the lapels of his tailored jacket. “Tell me why I shouldn’t break your neck?”  
“Because, then you’d be a murderer.” Rufus was trying to get his placid face on, Cloud could see the struggle, but the blood leaking from the side of his mouth and the disheveled stands of hair across his face belied the image of calm collection. “And those two downstairs would be accomplices to murder and you don’t want that.”  
“Fuck you.” The frustration and the fury and the shame welled up and he flung Rufus across the room, where he hit the bar and sent glasses tumbling. The elevator doors slid open and figures spilled out, the dark suits of Turks amidst a handful of Blues.   
Forget Rufus for the moment and concentrate on the armed problem. He whipped the sword out as he dove away from the spray of bullets one of the Blues peppered the room with. They were as likely to hit Rufus as him, probably more so, all things considered. The windowpane next to the one he’d crashed through splintered as bullets cracked into it.   
Somebody was screaming to stop firing. Cloud didn’t waste time seeing who, just rolled under the spray of bullets and swiped the legs out from under the closest of the Blues with the flat of his sword, then came up and shoulder slammed another back into the alcove with the elevators.   
A bullet whizzed by his head and he spun and deflected a follow up shot with the sword. It was Elena taking a bead on him, standing between him and the bar where Rufus was sprawled. Cloud leapt backwards, landed behind the long white couch and kicked it forward. It bowled over a trio of Blues and Elena had to dive aside to miss getting hit by it. Cloud followed the sofa’s route, dodging shots he couldn’t reflect and bore down on her.  
Elena blocked the sword with her gun, but the blade cleaved through the barrel, ruining the weapon. She kicked up at him, and Cloud avoided the blow, slamming the heel of his hand down against her forehead, causing the back of her head to thunk against the soft pile of Rufus’s carpet.   
There was a click of a weapon being cocked at his back, the presence of a body and he hissed softly, tensing to spring.  
“Stop it!! Everyone stop it, now!” Rufus was leaning against the bar, face flushed with honest anger.   
“Drop the sword, Cloud or I put a bullet in your head.” That was Tseng behind him.   
Cloud lifted his eyes and looked at Rufus. His hands were shaking. It wasn’t out of fear or exertion, just sheer frustrated anger. Diablo wasn’t at hand. Sephiroth was far enough removed to be untouchable. He needed an outlet for all the helpless rage that had built over the last few days.   
“If he tries,” he promised softly, “you’ll have one less Turk.”  
“Tseng,” Rufus said. “Lower your weapon. All of you, lower your weapons.”  
There was the soft shuffle of weapons being holstered, of bruised, battered men trying to get themselves together. Most of the Blues were in worse shape by far than they’d been coming in. Elena was dazed and half-conscious. Cloud didn’t turn to look at Tseng, just crouched there next to Elena and waited for Rufus to make whatever play he was plotting in that convoluted mind of his.   
“I understand your resentment, Cloud. I imagine you’re feeling rather ill-used about now.”  
“You think?” He growled.   
“You’re looking for retribution. Also understandable. But Cloud, you must understand the need for occasional sacrifices to the greater good.”  
He wanted to smash Rufus’s face in. The urge was so strong that his knuckles cracked on the hilt of the sword. “Greater good?” he asked, a tremor in his voice from the struggle not to act on that urge. “You mean making a deal with the devil to keep him from coming after you?”  
“No.” Rufus pushed himself off the edge of the bar and limped towards his desk. “I mean for the good of this world. Even you can understand that, can’t you, having sacrificed for it before?”  
Cloud rose in one fluid motion, and the security rustled around him nervously. Tseng moved past him, positioning himself, gun still in hand between Cloud and Rufus.   
“Diablo’s not a threat to the world,” Cloud growled. “He’s a threat to you.”  
“But Sephiroth’s a different matter.” Rufus dropped down into his chair with a wince of pain.   
Cloud glared at him silently, waiting.   
Rufus looked past him to the gathered Blues. He waved a hand and snapped. “Out. All of you out.”  
They didn’t actually start moving until Tseng gave them a nod and indicated Elena who they helped up and supported to the elevator. Tseng himself stayed put and Cloud doubted any order of Rufus’s could have shaken him loose from the room.   
Rufus dabbed at the blood on his mouth while he waited for the Blue’s to depart, waited until the elevator door’s closed and gave the car enough time to get a few floors away and still didn’t speak. Cloud’s patience was eroding fast.   
“I’d offer you a drink - - you look like you need one - - but I assume you’d be a bit wary after the last time.”  
Cloud didn’t actually remember the last time, but he’d pieced enough together to bristle silently at the reminder and Rufus’s cool admission.   
“I’m not here to chat.”   
“No, I don’t imagine you are.” Now that he had the leisure to do so, Rufus looked Cloud up and down and Cloud’s animosity rose another notch at the casual scrutiny. “It seems you’re not much worse for wear, all things considered. I had faith in your durability. I also assume, since you seem to be on your game today, that you discovered the capsule?”  
It took an actual effort not to touch the wound at his side.   
“It wasn’t just a sedative. Two years of research based on a decade of field study and supposition went into what you carried to Diablo.”  
“What I carried - -?”   
“There was a virus in that capsule. A very specific, time released biological weapon designed for a single purpose.”  
“You infected me with a virus?” Cloud stepped forward, boots crunching on bits of glass, sword tip swinging up. Tseng blocked his clear path to Rufus, expressionless face betraying his nerves only by a twitch in the jaw.   
“An inhibitor, more accurately. If you recall, I did ask for your cooperation. You refused.”  
“You _infected_ me with a Virus?”   
“Dormant in you, I promise.” Rufus held up his hands. “Designed specifically for one person and one person only. You were simply my delivery agent, so to speak. That is what you do now, isn’t it? Deliver goods. This time the merchandise was simply of a biological nature. The infection could have been more clinical, if he’d had allowed us inject it into his bloodstream - - but, well, I doubted the likelihood of that and there were other factors that presented problems with that course of action. The only other way was infect a host that he was likely to come into intimate conteact with. And well, with the Sephiroth influences and Diablo’s own nature, he does seem to have a perverse interest in you, Cloud. I assume there was physical contact? Any orifice would have sufficed?”  
He didn’t telegraph his attack. Just went from standing with the sword point a few inches off the floor to slamming into Tseng, before the Turk realized he was on the move. Cloud was on Rufus before Tseng hit the carpet, a fist in the face driving Rufus over backwards in his chair. Tseng was scrambling to Rufus who was sprawling amidst his chair against the wall, too late to stop the initial damage, but willing to put himself between his boss and the attempt of any more infliction. Cloud crouched on top of the glossy topped desk, glaring down. Rufus was bleeding profusely from a nose that was already starting to swell.   
“Son of a bitch!!” Rufus wheezed through the blood, “You think if there was some sure shot I wouldn’t have taken it?” Tseng had all his attention, along with his gun, trained on Cloud, so Rufus had to struggle out of the tangle of legs and chair alone. He kicked the chair into the cubby under the desk with more force than needed and stabbed a finger up at Cloud. “Sephiroth needed to be close to the surface for it to take effect, understand? If we’d tried to deliver it from a distance with out knowing he was close, it would have been a wasted effort. I don’t give a shit about Diablo and his vendetta - - Sephiroth scares the hell out of me! Can you relate to that, Cloud? Do you get that if he breaks through again we might not be so lucky next time and be able to stop him before he calls calamity down on this world? _You_ might not be so lucky. You’re my best weapon against him, in more ways than one, but he’s not stupid. Arrogant, yes, but how many times do you think he’ll repeat the same mistake before he starts using different tactics? He already has started using them, or do you think it was Diablo’s idea to start attacking Sephiroth’s enemies on his own?”  
“What makes you think,” Cloud breathed softly, “he’s coming back?”  
“Idiot!” Rufus snarled at him. “Don’t pretend to be blinder than you are, just because you’d rather not dwell on unpleasant reality. I’m not so conveniently ignorant of possibility. We’ve been working on a way to counter him once and for all if he appeared again. All we need now is for Sephiroth to make the physical transition.”  
Cloud stared at Rufus in disbelief. “You _want_ that?” Clearly Rufus was as insane as Diablo and Sephiroth. He had to wonder how a patently sane man, like Tseng, could stand there and not flinch at the madness his employer was spewing.   
Rufus leaned forward, eyes gone bright and smug with the perceived genius of whatever wild plan he had concocted.   
“The virus - - inhibitor if you will - - is dormant in Diablo, just like it’s dormant in you, but once Sephiroth makes the transition, it will become active. You might say it works similarly to the healing waters in the old cathedral, zeroing in on certain properties within a biological system and neutralizing them. The more destructive tendencies he inherited from the Jenova persona via its DNA will be defused, neutering him in effect, trapping him in a prison of flesh with no more ability than - - say, your average super Soldier. Not harmless, certainly, but beggars can’t be choosers and we can deal with a renegade Solider more effectively than we can deal with a homicidal demi-god with notions of world destruction.”  
“In theory.” Dealing with scientific supposition of the sort that used human beings as lab rats made Cloud uneasy. He didn’t want to dwell on how Rufus’s researchers had come up with this virus and who they’d tested it on. He shivered at the fact that it was swimming around in his own body, only having Rufus’s dubious word that it was harmless to him.   
“It’s more than theory, Cloud, I promise you that.”  
“Your promises are worthless.”   
“It’s a different world.” Rufus reached out for Tseng’s hand to pull him up. The collar of his cream suit was stained with blood, his voice becoming more noticeably nasal as his broken nose swelled. “You may not like my tactics, but the welfare of this world is where ShinRa’s interests lie.”  
Something caustic and profane hovered on Cloud’s lips, he bit it back and asked instead. “If you’re right and your plan works, what then?”  
“Simple. We capture and contain him and as long as he’s safely in our custody, trapped in a body of flesh, there will be no swimming of the life stream searching for another host, no more threat from the ghost of the Calamity.”   
Cloud looked away, towards the grey outline of the new city outside Rufus’s windows. Cold wind whipped in from the shattered section, stirring the scattered papers that had once neatly graced Rufus’s desk. There was nothing he could say about this madness that would make a difference one way or another. There was too much new and unwelcome information swirling around in his mind to form a cohesive opinion.   
He hopped down from the desk, sheathing the sword in one smooth motion. Tseng relaxed marginally. Rufus’ mouth twitched in a smile.  
“I’m glad you’re seeing the reason of the situation - -“  
“I don’t see anything. Expect a bill for services rendered.” He walked towards the elevators, preferring the easy way down. “And I want my sword back.”  
“It will be waiting for you when you get to the lobby,” Rufus promised, pleased with himself despite a bloody face and the wreckage of his suite.   
Cloud scowled at him until the elevator doors closed.   
They opened again to a wall of Blues guarding the entrance to the elevators from the lobby. There looked like there had been a bit of a tussle, but not a big one. Barret and Tifa were holding their ground by the reception station, returning the glowers of the Blues. Tifa’s face lit up in relief when she saw him shoulder his way past the Blues blocking the elevator. No one tried to put a hand on him or a weapon, so he figured word had filtered down from above that all was well, if not forgiven.   
Reno appeared from an entrance beyond the desk, scowling, the sheathed sword Cloud had entrusted with lobby security on his first visit, in both arms. Rude drifted in behind him, one arm in a sling.   
Cloud took it from him, automatically checking to see if the materia slots had been tampered with. All seemed in order.   
“No Valentine?” Reno asked with a sulky cant of the head. “Dare we hope he went down playing in the wastes?”  
Cloud hadn’t been paying a great deal of attention to what Cid and Tifa’s explanations of how they’d managed to find him on the trip home from Diablo’s wasteland hideout, but he did remember the bare bones. Vincent had hunted down Reno and Rude and squeezed the information out of them. He could make an educated guess as to where Rude had gotten injured and by whom. Hence Reno’s ill wishes towards Vincent. Still, Reno had spilled information that more than likely would cause him trouble if his superiors found out. Information that had benefited Cloud a great deal, even if it had been unwillingly given.  
Cloud inclined his head, a silent motion of thanks that could have just as well been for the return of the sword. Reno tightened his lips and shrugged flippantly, moving back to lean against the counter next to his partner.   
“What happened?” Tifa moved up next to him as he strode through the forest of Blues for the lobby door. Barret trailed behind, glaring at the tense faces as they passed.   
“Later.” He wasn’t ready to start trying to explain something that still churned with such disturbing uncertainty in his own mind.   
“Cloud.” She wasn’t happy with his reluctance and rightfully so, considering the risk she and Barret had put themselves at playing distraction for him.   
“At the bar, so I only have to tell it once. Promise.”  
When they reached the truck, Cloud unfastened the sheath with the old sword and placed it in the bed. He buckled his favored weapon in its place. Half again as heavy, but the weight felt good. Familiar and reassuring and powerful with embedded materia.   
“I’m walking,” he said, passing by Barret and the open, bullet-riddled passenger side door.  
“What d’ya mean, walking?” Barret yelled at his back.   
Since the answer was self-evident, Cloud didn’t bother answering. Barret repeated the question to Tifa and Cloud heard her softly tell the big man to calm down, that they’d meet him back at the bar and all would be explained.   
As if Cloud knew how to explain this mess. As if he wanted to try. But they deserved the attempt, because who knew what was prowling out there in the wastes, circling the city like wolves on the hunt. Who knew what might be born out there, coming into the world again with a full-set of teeth despite all Rufus’s claims to the contrary. Like Rufus had said, even if Sephiroth crossed over with stunted powers, he’d still be a super Solider, and he’d be pissed. If Rufus thought he was going to outsmart him and capture him then Rufus was mad. For all Sephiroth’s psychosis, and delusions of godhood, he was still a military genius. If he went down, it wasn’t going to be easy, because the only thing that Cloud was confident that Rufus had been dead on about, was that Sephiroth would learn from his past mistakes.


	14. Chapter 14

Cid sat by the window and smoked. A pack of cigarettes got sucked down in the span of a few hours, but then his nerves were shot and he had plenty of things to worry about. Chief among them Vincent, who was still out, with new wounds mixed in among the old upon pallid flesh. There was a particularly nasty one on his shoulder, a through and through, that might have been a helluva lot worse than it was, if he hadn’t been overcome by his demon. The wound was half way healed over now, the edges a relatively healthy pink against otherwise pasty skin. It would be just one more pale scar against paler skin in a week or so. Vincent healed inhumanly fast. And he went into these comatose states when he was hurt bad and came out of it hale and whole again.  
So what was Cid worrying about? It was a just a body protecting itself, healing from too much trauma and too much energy drain that had Vincent down for the count. Maybe it was the fact that there were enemies still at large out there, and the good guys were short on numbers and beat to hell. Vincent out of it, Cloud put through the wringer, him with a bum arm and Tifa and Barret with a slew of kids to worry about - - it just put them at a disadvantage and he didn’t like sitting here waiting for the anvil to drop.  
He wished Cloud would get his ass back here and bring Tifa and Barret with him. He wished they’d taken up Reeve on his offer of a few WRO security placed around the neighborhood just in case. Early warning never hurt.  
But the WRO had their hands full hunting down the strays they knew the general whereabouts of, especially with Shinra Security conspicuously absent, and Reeve didn’t have the manpower to spare to play watchdog to a bunch of folks who could damned well take care of themselves. On good days.  
He stubbed the dregs of his last cigarette out on the windowsill and flicked the butt into the alley below. He got up and carefully rotated a stiff neck, feeling the pull of his bad arm. Vincent lay death still under white sheets, his gear neatly draped across the back of a chair, his various hardware on the desk next to it. Cid eased himself onto the edge of the bed, arranged a pillow against the headboard and leaned back.  
It would have been comforting to feel the warmth of a body next to him, but Vincent emanated nothing but cool, system so slowed down in the hibernation-like recovery it was practicing, that it was like sitting next to a corpse. Cid shivered a little, reflex to that morbid thought, and wished he’d drawn out that last smoke.  
It felt good to stretch out his legs though, to relieve the pressure on his aching back. He was tired and his body felt every one of its forty odd years. Damned if he wasn’t getting too old for this. If he shut his eyes, he’d be out for sure, and somebody needed to be awake to keep an eye out just in case some of Diablo’s dogs - - or god forbid, Diablo himself - - came looking for Cloud or retaliation.  
He thought about the Sierra and the repairs that needed doing and the parts that repair required and cursed a little in his head. He’d gone through hell and back getting those engines to begin with. It wasn’t like big airship turbines were sold at the corner market. Shinra Corp had the monopoly on construction and since Meteor their output had shot down drastically, them being short on funds and having enough reconstruction ahead of them to daunt even the most lucrative of corporate monsters. He ought to be making calls right now, to every scrap yard and machine shop on two continents trying to track down replacements parts, since getting new engines seemed a long shot. He was just too damned tired.  
If he just rested here, where he could keep an eye on Vincent, until he got his wind back, then he’d go to work.  
He might have dozed, because he started in surprise at the racket downstairs, his heart thumping a little erratically and it felt like he’d lost a little time. The light didn’t look much different coming in through the slats in the blinds though, and Vincent hadn’t moved. Not an inch. To damned corpse-like for anybody’s good.  
Cid swung his legs onto the floor and felt the stiff joints that said, yes, he probably had napped. He stretched, working out the crick in his neck, and headed towards the stairs.  
Barret’s deep voice assured him that it was friendly commotion and not invasion, so he took his time. The need for a smoke was itching its way up his spine.  
Barret was annoyed about something, a scowl on his broad face, and Tifa was frowning a little and trying not to. She looked up at Cid’s decent and put on a ghost of a smile.  
“Still out,” he answered, before she could ask the question. “Where’s the kid?”  
“Walking,” Barret exploded like it was a sin against nature. “Needed some damned space.”  
Cid cast Tifa a questioning look and she shrugged. “He got his sword back. Whatever happened with Rufus - - upset him. He’ll be back when he’s ready and tell us.”  
“Last time he took off in a snit, we didn’t hear from his ass for three months.” Barret reminded.  
“These are different circumstances,” Tifa said quietly, but there was doubt in her dark eyes. Cloud’s reliability often hinged on his state of mind, and at the moment he had a lot to be unhinged about. He wouldn’t abandon them with half the deadbeats of two continents circling the city like wolves on the prowl - - Cid hoped.  
“Listen, I need to get out and stretch my legs a little, maybe walk down to the corner market and pick up a pack of smokes. Check on Vin for me, will you?”  
Tifa nodded, grateful to have something to take her mind off Cloud and Cloud’s issues - - not an easy task considering what those issues were.  
He got out side, into sector 7 at mid-day, the light filtering down through the foliage of metal and concrete above bright enough to show all the blemishes of old buildings and pot marked streets. There were a few older kids out, but the younger ones were absent, squirreled away somewhere out of harm’s way. The older street rats, the shiftless and the criminally minded stuck to their dark alleys and didn’t venture out to harass him. That sort had a sixth sense about who was predator and who was prey, but none of them here in this part of the city could hold a candle to what lurked outside it.  
The Corner Market stocked a little bit of everything. Foodstuffs and thrift goods, the odd weapon or two and assorted mechanical junk salvaged from where ever they could find. Cid sorted through the junk in the back, always on the look out for the odd rare gear or pinion that couldn’t be found except for stripping it out of an old piece of equipment. There was nothing of interest. So he left with two packs of smokes and a strip of seasoned jerky.  
There were two big junkyards in the city that he’d stop by maybe tomorrow and see what sort of pieces and parts he might find for the Sierra. He’d maybe see if Barret wanted to come along, Barret being on the in with the local salvagers. Maybe by then Vincent would have snapped out of his slumber.  
He tapped out a smoke, and walked to a railing overlooking a lower section of city. He leaned there, one foot on the rusted railing and sucked on the cigarette, going over logistics and repair schematics in his head, calculating lost income if the Sierra was down for a month - - two months. More. He had capital, but not enough to purchase all the repair parts he’d need and dole out salaries to the crew both for a long stretch of downtime.  
He’d curse bad luck, but it hadn’t been ill fate that had blown up his engine. He flattened the nub of the smoke with his boot and headed back to the bar.  
Barret was wailing on something in the adjoining warehouse, trying to make headway on repairs. If Cid hadn’t felt like warmed over death, he’d have offered a helping hand, but one handed as he was, it would be a lousy offer.  
Tifa came downstairs a little later, after he’d settled into a booth with a stiff back and a view of the street. She saw him and nodded, going behind the bar to do whatever it was bar tenders did when the bar was closed.  
“He’s so quiet when he’s like this.” She said softly, and he knew she was talking about Vincent’s imitation of a dead body.  
“Yeah. Freaks me out, too.”  
She smiled a little at that, at his light tone, because maybe she’d put a hand on Vin’s face and felt the cold and been scared by it.  
“You opening up, tonight?”  
She took a breath, eyes flittering around the bar room. There was no smoke damage here, but the air reeked of it. Course, after a few shots of strong drink, a man wouldn’t care, even if he did notice.  
“Maybe,” she said. “I don’t want to loose customers. If everything stays quiet - - yeah.”  
He sat for a while, finally lit up another smoke and settled his nerves with the flavor of tobacco.  
“What do you think they’re doing out there?” Tifa broke the quiet with the soft question. The outlaws. The bandits. Diablo’s pack.  
“Waiting.” It seemed like the right answer. The gut feeling answer.  
“For what?”  
He wasn’t so sure with that one. Thought maybe it had to do with Cloud, but she wouldn’t want to hear that and he didn’t want to dwell on it. He shook his head.  
She poured him a shot of the good stuff, and he sat and savored it, listening to the sounds of Barett’s repairs and the muffled noise of Midgar outside the bar’s thin walls.  
Cloud rolled in eventually, big sword strapped to his back, face unreadable. Tifa came out from the back room, looked at him in silent relief and went about her business. Damned smart woman, not to pry when a man had issues, Cid thought. Otherwise Cloud would have been gone long since, prickly as he was.  
Cid just nodded at him and Cloud took a breath, loosening the sword and laying it on the bar top, before reaching over the bar and snagging a plastic bottle of water.  
“Vincent?” he asked.  
“Still out.” Cid shrugged.  
Cloud took a swig of water. Finished off half the bottle before putting his back to the bar and saying. “Call Rufus Shinra. Tell him what parts you need for the repair.”  
Cid almost laughed. “Yeah? And what good’s that gonna do me?”  
“He owes me. Go for broke. He’ll cover the bill.”  
Cid stared, almost afraid to know what favor Rufus owed Cloud that would cover the tab of a refit for the Sierra. His mind was working though, making lists, big ticket items that a privateer like himself would never be able to get his hands on without a fantasy line of credit and damned good connections - - maybe not even then if he dreamed big and started thinking military class engines.  
“You sure, Kid? He owes you this big and you’re handing it off to me?”  
Cloud finished off the water, looked under his lashes as Barett came in from the back, with Tifa trailing behind. Cloud nodded once, mouth tightening even before Barett opened his to complain about Cloud’s absence half the morning.  
“About goddamned time you got back. What the hell?”  
And Cloud told them. An abbreviated version, Cid figured, but what he said explained a lot. Tifa didn’t do a lot of questioning, but Barret did, asking things like why Rufus had been so certain Diablo would go after Cloud personally? Like couldn’t there have been an easier way than drugging a man and trading him off to the enemy to deliver this supposed virus - - and if all it had taken was close contact, why not just expose the bastard at the meet?  
Reasonable questions that Cloud got a closed off, flat look in his blue eyes listening to and refused an answer past a shrug. Not happy, Cloud - - and holding back a simmering anger that would break sooner rather than later, if Cid knew the kid. And he figured after all this time, he knew Cloud about as well as anybody, ‘cept maybe Tifa - - and Vincent. And he thought maybe Cloud admitted things to Vincent, that he didn’t even to the girl - - because, well there were things a man just didn’t admit to a woman and still feel like a man.  
Vincent. He ought to go up and check on him. Did after Cloud got fed up with Barret’s bitching and padded down to his garage.  
The room was just as dark and just as silent as last he’d been in it. You could hardly hear the sound of Vincent’s breath it was so shallow and soft. Cid put fingers to his neck, just to be sure, and felt the slow thud of pulse. He sat down in the chair afterwards, feet up on the edge of the bed and concreted the list of components he’d need for the Sierra. He’d call home to confirm that no other problems had been found, no damaged supports or other major problems found that might need to be added to the wish list, before he presented it to Shinra for filling. Damn, but wasn’t that a concept? Having the Company bend over and absorb the cost of a damned major refit. Stuff of wet dreams. Cid grinned a little, before he fell into a doze himself.  
Came awake near evening, the light coming in the slats of the window sullen and purple. His bladder ached, and he got up, grimacing at the complaint of one stiff knee, and ambled to the bathroom down the hall. He heard the muffled sound of the jukebox from downstairs and figured Tifa had opened the bar and early customers had already ventured in.  
He caught a reflection of himself in the weathered mirror, and paused, running a hand over a chin covered with more stubble than he generally liked to allow. He looked gaunt. Felt gaunt and thin and wasted. It had been a hard few days and he’d gotten lazy the last few years, sitting comfy in the pilot’s seat, running cargo from coast to coast with a damned proficient team doing the heavy lifting. It had made him soft.  
He returned to the room, stopped in the doorway and stared at white rumpled sheets and an empty bed. He opened his mouth to swear, broke it off when the shadows shifted by the window.  
Vincent moved forward, all slim, lean lines in just the black of his unbuttoned shirt and the simple cut of trousers without the addition of assorted belts, buckles and weaponry. He had his holster in the metal hand, but it dropped to his side as he took a step. There was something in his face, that was as close to honest surprise as Cid had ever seen him show. A widening of blood red eyes and a parting of soft lips as he let out a breath.  
“I thought you were dead,” Vincent said simply, softly.  
“Who? Me?” Cid scoffed, and smiled crookedly - - let it falter after a second because Vincent was still staring at him like he was a revelation and it made something inside quiver a little.  
“I dreamed of blood and destruction,” Vincent said. “And I dreamed of you - - dead. I grieved.”  
What did you say to that, coming from a man that never let his emotions slip?  
“Yeah, well. You should have had more faith. How are you feeling?”  
Vincent looked away, face half cast in shadow, maybe taking stock. Maybe collecting himself.  
“It overcame me. I let it willingly.” He lifted his flesh and blood hand to the half healed wound and shrugged.  
“He ran you through and through.” Cid explained the wound, in case Vincent didn’t recall. Moved into the room and pushed the door shut behind him, before walking over. “But you drove him off. You going somewhere?”  
Vincent had had that look. That flight or fight look, when Cid had appeared in the doorway. If Cid hadn’t walked in when he had, if he’d have gone downstairs to enjoy a drink and a smoke before coming back up, Vincent might have just been gone, disappeared where none of them could find him if he’d been feeling the sting of fresh grief.  
Cid reached down and gently eased the holster from Vincent’s metal grasp. Damned risky endeavor, considering Vincent and his relationship with his hardware, but Cid figured he had a lot of leeway coming, turning up alive and all.  
Vincent let him, and Cid draped it across the back of the chair. Got close enough to be well into Vincent’s personal space and looked him direct in the eye, seeking those little clues that hinted at the state of Vincent’s sanity that only those few people he let close might know to look for.  
Vincent met his look, eyes steady and unflinching, drifting down finally to a new scrape on Cid’s neck and a big purpling bruise peeping out from under his collar across his shoulder. Vincent’s eyes didn’t flicker, didn’t make those little darting motions that most folk’s did when they were studying the details of things, his just moved with a slow steady drag from point A to point B, until he’d covered the required space.  
“You’re not injured?” Vincent asked.  
“Not much more than I already was.”  
“The others?”  
“Everybody’s good. Kid’s okay. Pissed off. Got some information out of Rufus Shinra that’s eye opening. Wanna sit down and hear it?”  
Vincent sat down on the edge of the bed. Cid scraped the chair a few inches closer and sat down opposite him, knee to knee and told him Cloud’s rendition of the story. Vincent didn’t say anything.  
“If they’re still out there - -” Vincent finally said.  
“Yeah, somebody’ll need to drive their sorry asses out of Midgar territory. Bad enough that the stray bandit or six harasses travelers - - couple of hundred out there will cause major fuck ups. WRO’s got patrols out. Shrina damn well ought to have more than they do, but Rufus is holding his people close to Midgar. Go figure what that smarmy bastard is thinking.”  
“He won’t leave until he’s settled with Cloud,” Vincent said.  
Cid thought about that smoke. Thought about the things Cloud hadn’t said. Thought about the damn scary things he had. Sephiroth, for God’s sake. As if they hadn’t had their fill of him. Twice. Damn Shinra and his schemes.  
He flexed his bum arm, growled a little at the stab of pain, but he’d damned sure better get used to it if there was something bigger on the horizon than they’d already gotten their asses kicked by.  
Vincent reached out, stilling his rotation of the arm with his flesh hand. Cid grinned at him grimly. “Yeah, if I could sleep the injuries off in a day’s time like you, I’d be in right good shape, wouldn’t I?”  
“You can’t.” Vincent had that look in his eyes that said he was still thinking about fleeing the uncomfortable confinement of walls and human companionship. Cid knew it like the back of his hand.  
He grasped the back of Vincent’s neck, fingers biting in hard, through the fall of silk sleek hair, pulling him forward a little. “Just cause you can, don’t mean you need to rush out there in the middle of the night and take out frustrations on those shit eaters out in the waste. I know you got more common sense than the kid and even he ain’t rushing into that, yet.”  
Vincent’s lashes flickered down, thick black fringe against corpse pale cheeks. Vincent did have common sense. In spades. He was usually damned meticulous in the things he did - - like he planned out everything in his head before hand. It was what made him so deadly even without the benefit of demonic alter egos. ‘cept when something got under his skin - - something personal - - like the handful of people he called his own on this fucked up planet getting hurt. Then he started veering into Cloud’s territory of unpredictability and damned if they needed two wildcards with the situation as explosive as it was.  
“Ain’t no reason to go out tonight when the rest of us are still healing up. Would you make me traipse out there after you, banged up like I am?” Play the pity card. Vincent wasn’t immune, as much as he liked to pretend he was.  
“It would be foolish if you did,” Vincent finally said. “And you are seldom foolish.”  
Cid sniffed, curled his fist in the hair at the nape of Vincent’s neck and Vincent leaned over his knees and endured it, looking up at Cid from under those lashes of his. The urge to kiss him hard and rough, to reaffirm the physical things, the state of a body’s well being, was damned hard to fight off. But the door didn’t have a lock, and Tifa or Barret or God help him, one of Tifa’s kids, walking in and catching them at it would have been damned embarrassing.  
So he settled for squeezing Vincent’s knee with his other hand and sitting back, digging in his pocket for the soft pack of smokes.  
“Cloud was in the garage sharpening blades, last I checked. Wanna walk down and see what’s brewing in his head? Maybe we can actually get our collective shit together for a change and coordinate.”  
It would be a long shot with this bunch, but hell, anything was worth a shot.


	15. Chapter 15

Fire lit the night out over the old walls of sector nine. You could see it from the beams and catwalk crawlies that extended between the new rail construction over Sector eight. The wastelanders had hit old town, where the defenses had been crumbling to begin with and no active city patrols to try and keep them from their mischief. Not that any pair of roving Blue’s would have made much difference against the vicious shit eaters that worked for Diablo.   
Cid took a long drag from his smoke, legs dangling off the wide I-beam and watched the glow of fire. You could hear the wail of sirens still going off and the distant cries of fire fighters, come too late to save the ram shackle homes of those dirt-poor souls who etched out a life in the old sectors. Damned sad place to hit, devastating folks who had nothing to begin with - - unless all you were out to do was raise hell or make a point.   
Cid glanced aside, where Cloud stood out over the middle of the beam, staring silently in that same direction. Vincent perched like a red cloaked night bird on the skinnier beam above. They’d come up here to watch, when word of the wastelander strike had come in over the radio. Too late to do anything about it, but observe the fight to contain the fires. There were probably dead over there, but body counts wouldn’t come in until things cooled down.   
“Makes no damned sense, hitting the slums like that. Ain’t like there was nothing to steal,” he complained.   
Neither Vincent nor Cloud had an opinion they cared to voice. Both of them too damned quiet for their own good.   
“Second strike in as many days. Is the bastard sending them out or are they just getting bored and raising hell on their own. What in hell is he trying to prove?”  
“That he can,” Vincent said softly.   
“Yeah,” Cid snorted. “Ain’t no doubt about that. What’s he want?”   
But he knew the answer to that, and so did they. What that bastard out there controlling the roving wastelanders wanted was the kid. For whatever damned twisted reasons a madman infiltrated with the ghost of another crazier sociopath might concoct. God knew a reasonable man, a man as sane as the world would let him be couldn’t quite wrap his mind around the dark machinations of the movers and shakers that rocked normal folks lives.   
Cloud’s expression hardened, fists clenching, unclenching at his sides, easy as a cat out there in the middle of a beam three hundred feet off the ground. Vincent was worse. Vincent likened to give a man grey hairs before his time, with some of the shit he pulled, like he had some special arrangement with gravity that none of the rest of them had.   
Cid crushed out the remainder of his cigarette and flicked the stub over the edge, took a deep breath of smoke tinged air and growled. “Somebody needs to jam a fistful of their own medicine down the murdering bastard’s throats.”  
Vincent was quiet as death up there, save for the flap of his cloak. You could practically hear the low grind of Cloud’s anger, though. The clench of leather as he fisted his hands again and again, helpless up here to make a difference. And standoffish as Cloud was, he did like to make a difference. He’d done his part and then some to make life livable for folks that otherwise might have died long before. Kid didn’t deserve the bad luck that always seemed to flow his way, but he dealt with it.   
“I think,” Vincent said finally, softly. “I’m going to take a walk.”  
Cloud shifted his gaze from the glow of distant fires to Vincent, silent exchange between blue eyes and demonic red. The ghost of a grim smile twitched at the corner of his mouth. Closest Cid had come to seeing the kid smile in - - well, a damned long time.   
Damn. Pair of fools was what, considering neither one of them was likely 100 percent after the tussle with Diablo and his wastelander army.   
“A man that had his ass handed to him a few days past ain’t got no business roaming around out there looking to pick a fight, so I guess I’ll be sitting this one out. Guess you two ain’t got enough common sense to do the same.”  
Cid ran a hand through his hair, figuring one way or another somebody that deserved it was going to feel a little pain tonight. Damn sure he was too tired and sore to dole it out, but if Cloud and Vincent were in the frame of mind to relieve a little tension and dispose of a bit of garbage in the process, nothing he had to say was going to stop them.   
“You just make sure you’re back by morning, else I guess I will be dragging my sorry ass out there looking for you. Tifa and Barret, too and they got better things to do than combing the waste looking for scraps of you.   
He pushed himself up, staring at Cloud unflinchingly until the kid inclined his head.   
“That means you, too, Vin.” Cid turned his eyes to Vincent.   
“Yes.”  
Cid took a breath, not feeling much better about it, but if anybody was equipped to go out there and hunt in the dark it was Vincent. And Cloud - - well, save a lot of recent bad luck, there weren’t nobody better. Far as Cid could tell Diablo hadn’t ever faced Cloud without an ace up his sleeve or a pack of trash armed to the teeth at his back. One day there’d come a reckoning. Not tonight he hoped.   
“Ain’t either of you up to tackling that bastard tonight. Not while you’re still healing. You run into Diablo, do the smart thing and live to fight another day.” Cid said, climbing down from his perch. “You hear me, kid?”  
“I hear you,” Cloud said grimly and Cid was frankly surprised he’d gotten that acknowledgment. Maybe the kid had grown a little common sense. Vincent was already gone.   
By the time Cid reached the ground, Cloud was nowhere to be seen either. He shook his head and lit up another smoke and started walking back towards the bar. He took his time, debating whether to tell Tifa and Barret about this little night venture. Wouldn’t serve no purpose, he figured, save to stir up trouble. Side’s the last thing two quiet, efficient hunters needed was Barret charging into the fray guns blazing and Cid figured he knew Barret well enough by now that it was a good bet the big man wouldn’t sit tight while friends of his were out there picking off wasteland scum alone. Cid might not have been willing, if he’d had two good arms.   
So, he’d keep his mouth shut ‘till morning.   
Tifa was still up when he got in, doing some late night cleaning after the night’s business. Somber crowd, what with the latest attack. But somber folks drank as much as happy ones, more maybe, so she’d likely had a big crowd.   
She inclined her head at him as he shuffled in, not asking about Cloud or Vincent out loud, though she had to be wondering. Smart girl. Always had been a damned smart girl.   
“Good night?” He settled at the bar and she put a shot glass before him without asking and filled it up with amber liquor. Damned good woman. If either of his ex wives had had half the sense maybe he’d still be wearing a ring.   
He downed the whisky and sighed at the burn.   
“Good night,” she confirmed. “People drink more when they’re scared.”  
She didn’t sound happy about it. He wondered if Barret was with the kids. Probably. Loud and inelegant as he was, Barret was protective as hell over Marlene and those others too young to protect themselves. With a sector on fire, those kids wouldn’t be in a good frame of mind.   
Tifa poured herself half a shot and sat the bottle between them, clear invitation. Cid accepted it, and refilled his glass. Might as well get a little drunk rather than sit here on edge worrying about two fools who could damn sure take care for themselves.   
She kept wiping out glasses, keeping her silence until she was probably so eat up inside that she couldn’t keep it any longer. She didn’t look at him when she asked. “Cloud went out there, didn’t he?”  
He wouldn’t lie to her outright. “Him and Vin. Yeah.”  
She was still for a moment, then she nodded, more to herself than him and turned back around, sliding the last clean glass under the shelf. She pulled another bottle out from under the bar. An old one, that a man with a sense for such things, just knew contained very fine whiskey. The good stuff that she didn’t just share with any old drunk.   
She came around the bar and sat down on the stool next to him and refilled both their glasses. Cid took a sip and sighed. As fine a burn as he’d ever tasted, a thing to be savored.   
“Cloud brought it back from a job that took him out to Shan’roo, last year,” Tifa supplied, downing her own shot in one big gulp. “This is the first time I’ve gotten around to opening it.”  
“Good stuff.” Cid finished off his own and Tifa refilled.   
The girl could hold her liquor, that was for sure. He was twenty plus years her senior and she kept up with him shot for shot while they sat there in silence and polished off a good half a bottle of expensive whiskey.   
Finally she said, looser tongued than usual. “I don’t know what he wants.”  
Cloud he figured. And Tifa a woman who loved a man who had no idea what it was he needed. He had no notion what to tell her, advice on affairs of the heart the last thing he was qualified to give, having gone through his share of failed relationships and engaged presently in one that was as bizarre and unpredictable as they came.   
“He’s a kid,” he said finally, because she was staring at him like she needed an answer. “What - -twenty-two, twenty-three - ? And been through the ringer than more times than most folks four times his age can even imagine. Don’t surprise me that he’s got issues.”  
“I know,” she wrapped her fingers around the bottle, staring into amber liquid. “I know he can’t always - - connect - - the way other people do, but he’s getting better. And I think he feels this is home now - -that ‘we’re’ home now. But I’m not sure his idea of family and mine are the same thing.”  
Cid studied her, hearing fears that he doubted she’d ever had voiced to him stone sober.   
“Are we talking sex?” If _he’d_ have been stone sober he’d never have asked. But he got the feeling he’d hit the nail on the head when she winced, fingers tightening on the bottle.   
“I don’t know if he’s just scared of crossing that line - - or if he doesn’t want me that way.”  
He felt for her, worrying about this for how many years, waiting for Cloud to make a move that never came. Cid didn’t doubt the kid loved her, but when it came down to those desperate moments when he was strapped for comfort of the physical sort, it wasn’t her bed he sought. Vincent’s, if he were available, or god knew who else that fit the bill. It hadn’t occurred to him, who had no trouble bedding women or men, that maybe Cloud had narrower preferences. Or that maybe the kid had been so fucked up when he was younger by the whole miserable mess that had torn away his identity, that right was left and up down and every other priority he had skewed out of whack.   
“You ever just ask him?”  
She laughed, dropping her forehead to her arm. “And have him clam up and disappear for a month? Or forever? I can wait for him to make up his mind.”  
Cid finished off the last of his whiskey and thought that might be a damn long time for a good woman to wait.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're enjoying this, don't be shy taking a few moments to write a comment and let me know. Its always appreciated.


	16. Chapter 16

The wastelanders had scattered. Back to their old ways of roving in bands small enough to avoid detection. And they were good at that, finding nooks and crannies in the dry lands beyond Midgar to dig into when it came down to hunting them down. 

But there were still more of them out there than usually roamed this particular area and there were only so many hiding spots for men and vehicles to shelter, especially when they were high on recent destruction. 

Whether they were working under Diablo’s order or he’d left them to their own devices Cloud didn’t hazard a guess, focused instead on the job. He’d been dwelling too much on whys and wherefores and all he needed now was simple, direct interaction. 

They’d stolen a Shinra patrol vehicle and Vincent drove it, lights off in the darkness, night vision good enough to make Red XIII envious. Silent ride mostly, save for the creaks and jolts of the SUV bouncing over uneven terrain, but then Cloud was used to traveling alone and silence was no enemy. 

They found the first group of wastelanders three miles to the south of Midgar, the faint glow of a celebratory fire reflecting off the walls of a narrow grotto giving away their hidey hole. 

Vincent cut the engine a quarter mile distant and gave Cloud a silent nod. They’d fought together long enough to know each other’s habits, know the tactics of the hunt. Vincent disappeared into the night while Cloud was sheathing his sword. 

He took a breath, pushing back everything but the focus demanded for battle. The aches and pains that still lingered were a hazy awareness in the background. 

He took the low route, following the tire tracks into the mouth of a rocky crevice. Vincent would probably have already gone high, finding a good vantage to snipe. The vehicles were pulled in snug, a dozen of them cooling the darkness. Beyond the wastelanders celebrated around a fire, shrill laughter, the smell of gasoline and cheap booze, of urine and sweat and oil. Familiar scents and for a moment his head swam, unprecedented weakness that he shook off with a growl. There were twenty-five men maybe that he could see from the behind the shadow of a truck, cavorting in fire lengthened shadow.

There was a scream. High pitched, feminine and aborted. He zeroed in on a group at the other side of the fire. Men hovering around a heavy figure thrusting atop another on a blanket on the ground. Of course they hadn’t just ripped into the city to raise their hell, they’d taken a trophy as well. 

Cloud felt his vision go black around the edges, lurid flashes of himself on his back in the midst of them, of dirty faces leering down, of hands on his body inflicting shame and pain that he’d been helpless to stop - - 

He snarled, drawing the sword even as he launched himself off the hood of the truck and into their midst. A shot from out of the blackness took out the back of the head of the man atop the faceless woman even as Cloud slashed into a startled wastelander twenty feet away. Any mercy he’d been inclined to show, simply evaporated. 

Pandemonium erupted, men scattering, screaming in rage and surprise, snatching after weapons, the sound of gunshots, friendly fire and hostile, blending into the background. Everything slowed for him, as it did in the midst of battle, men’s movements shallow and sluggish. The trail of a bullet headed towards him, so damned obvious. He brought the sword up and deflected it, almost carelessly, ducked under the swipe of a dagger and jammed the hilt into a man’s windpipe, crushing it. He saw a man’s face, twisted in rage and had a crystal clear recollection of it leaning over him, jamming the lip of a bottle into his mouth. Cloud cut him in two and kept going, the black around the edges flushing red with the sort of berserker rage he hadn’t felt in years. 

He’d never taken pleasure from killing before, never looked at it with anything but grim necessity, but he felt the thrill of satisfaction now. The frenzied high of vengeance that came with a tang of copper at the back of his throat. He cut through them like they were dummies on a practice field. Saw the trace of one of Vincent’s bullets heading for a man with a rifle and beat it to the target, cutting through bone and flesh as if it were water. 

Then they were all down, scattered about like rag dolls, save for one, who backed away, terrified and gibbering. Cloud stalked towards him with a purpose, aware peripherally of Vincent bounding down from the heights, heading for the woman, who huddled half naked, where she’d been when Cloud had rushed in maybe three - - four minutes ago max, next to a corpse on a blanket.

The man had a blade on the end of a stick, hand made and splotched with rusty spots. Cloud knocked it aside with the flat of his sword, breaking a few bones in the process. The man howled curses, clutching hand to chest. He glared with dilated, bloodshot eyes when Cloud planted his sword and stepped in close. There was fear there. A great deal of fear. The man had a right to it, the things flitting behind Cloud’s eyes still crying out for blood. 

“Diablo. Where is he?” Softly asked. 

“Fuck y - -“ the man started, then stopped, seeing something in Cloud’s expression maybe that made the words choke in his throat. “Dunno. I dunno. Took off. Ain’t seen him since - -“

The man faltered again, eyes gone speculative this time, back straightening as he maybe figured he didn’t have much to lose that wasn’t going to be taken from him anyway. “ - - Not since he gave us you to play with down in the big grotto. He ain’t much for sharing his itinerary, just his fuck toys, huh?” The man grinned when he said it, tongue flicking in lewd little gesture.

Cloud could almost feel the man’s neck snap under his hands, could taste it before the fact. But a hole appeared between the man’s eyes, followed by the crack of a bullet echoing off canyon walls, before he could do the deed himself. 

He stood there as the body crumpled, teeth clenched, then turned to glare at Vincent, who had stolen his kill. 

Vincent stared back, eyes nothing but shadow between the fall of midnight hair and the darkness, forty feet across the clearing, a quietly sobbing woman was half hidden by his cloak. The hand with the gun was still up, faint whips of smoke drifting from the barrel. He said nothing, just swept the woman up and disappeared in a flutter of cloak into the darkness. 

Cloud let out his breath, pulling his sword out of the hard packed earth, turning in a slow circle to observe the carnage they had wrought. Mostly him. His blade was blood spattered, his clothes were. Bodies lay scattered, some in pieces, blood making the dry earth dark as it soaked in. 

Ragged men, with tattoos and piece meal armor, scavenged weapons and the stench of the unwashed. The stench of the recently dead now as well. Memory assaulted him again - - himself chained and trying not to scream - - a dirty body pressed hard behind him arm around his throat, hand clutching his balls as another of them came at him from the front with a lighter, dozens of them gathered close, cutting off his air, laughing as skin burned. 

He lashed out, slicing a materia powered arc in the air with the sword that sent a wave of energy into the dark walls of the grotto. Dismembering ghosts. Always fighting the ghosts one way or another. He laughed. And couldn’t stop. 

Couldn’t breath for it, until Vincent said his name sharply. Just there again and alone and Cloud had no idea how long he’d been gone or how long he’d stood there in the midst of these corpses, not quite in his right mind.

Cloud blinked at Vincent, who simply stood, still as rock when he chose. Not offering anything or asking for it. A void of emotion when everything inside Cloud wanted to well up and erupt - - he hated the feeling. Always hated that lack of control, fought it, wrapped it up in chains and never let it see the light of day where it would be vulnerable. Where _he_ would be vulnerable. Again. 

Never again. 

“I’m okay.” He wasn’t sure why he made the declaration. 

“No,” Vincent disagreed and Cloud flinched. They had deserved it. All of them predators that preyed on the weak. No telling how many innocent lives they’d snuffed out as a collective. Coming out here and stopping them - - inflicting justice of their own - - had been the plan from the get go. 

Vincent kept staring and Cloud felt something stretch taut, close to the breaking point. He clenched his fists, looking up at the dusk of the night sky above the black of grotto walls. 

“What they did to me - -” The words raked up his throat, not wanting out. He had spoken of it to no one, his experience at the hands of the wastelanders and Diablo. A private thing. A terrible thing that ate at the core of him. “I couldn’t stop it. I couldn’t - -“ 

His mind flitted back to those hours and maybe that was the worse part, the most shameful part - -that he’d been unable till the very last to protect himself and the last time he’d been so helpless, his mind had rebelled and wiped away parts of himself. 

“No,” Vincent agreed softly, nothing of condemnation in his voice or horror over the scattered bodies or the blood on Cloud’s hands. “They made certain of that with the drug. It was no failing of yours.” He was closer than he had been and Cloud hadn’t even seen him move. Close enough to feel the brush of his cloak as the wind ruffled it. 

Drugged and betrayed and manipulated. Rufus snug in his seat of power, pulling his strings, working towards his endgame. Diablo disappeared with the ghost of Sephiroth welling inside him and the both of them focused on him and not hesitant to destroy his friends in the process. He ground his teeth, tired and sore and angry to the point where wetness spiked his lashes. 

Convenient to lean in just a fraction against the solidity of Vincent’s shoulder. He hardly even realized he was doing it. Accepting comfort, whether it was covertly offered or not, was not a thing he was good at. He was damned bad at it, in fact. But Vincent’s opinions were blunt and on the mark and he offered no sympathy or attempts at rationalization which made him as safe a zone as Cloud had available. 

He took a breath, gathering calm in the face of something close to homicidal hysteria and took a step backwards no small bit embarrassed. 

“What happened to the woman?” He could pretend very well at stone cold sanity, even when he was teetering on the edge of something else altogether. 

“I sent her back to the city in the truck.” Vincent didn’t miss a beat, eyes as always, unreadable orange orbs. 

Cloud wiped his hands on his pants, blood blending in seamlessly with the black. The sword he wiped clean on a canvas tarp near the fire. 

“If we take two of their vehicles, we can cover twice the space,” Vincent suggested. 

He nodded, feeling control slip back, clear and focused. 

They’d come out here to hunt and it was still early yet, hours before dawn.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, I'd love to hear your thoughts about the story.


	17. Chapter 17

The sun was well on its way to banishing the pre-dawn murk by the time Cloud and Vincent made it back to 7th Heaven. 

They were cutting it close to Cid’s declared curfew, and it irked having to stay to somebody else’s deadline, but Cloud didn’t doubt for a minute that Cid, Tifa and Barrett would have geared up and headed out to the wasteland if they’d lingerer much longer. Cid didn’t make idle threats and Cloud didn’t trust that Diablo had truly departed the immediate Midgar area. If he were out there lurking in the shadows, he’d strike at the easy targets first. 

Not that Tifa or Barrett or Cid were easy targets - - they were all damned good and had proved it time and again. But they weren’t Super Soldiers. Not that Cloud was, but he’d had a bit more experience dealing with the Shinra elite - - or ex-Shinra elite as the case might be - - than most. He had that thread of connection, one of those _lucky_ few survivors of Shinra’s Jenovian experimentations. 

He shook off the _those_ musings, no comfortable place for his mind to go when he had only just managed to lighten the black mood this whole current situation had pulled him into. Unlocked the bar and walked into cool shadow with Vincent in his wake. As always, it smelled of alcohol and smoke, but it was a welcome change from blood and gasoline. 

He didn’t see Cid until the man moved, stubbing out a cigarette at the far end of the bar, and silently rising from the stool he’d been sitting on. Cid didn’t say a word, looking damn near as tired as Cloud felt, just gave them one of his narrow blue once-overs as he passed, maybe checking to see that there were no obvious wounds that needed tending, before he started up the stairs. 

Pissed maybe. Or just exhausted from a long night waiting up for them. Cloud glanced back at Vincent, but there was no reading his expression. He passed Cloud by with a faint nod and followed Cid up the stairs, to soothe bruised feelings in private, maybe. 

Almost, Cloud felt a pang of envy, that in the end, Vincent always migrated towards Cid. He shook that off, too, knowing very well that his capacity for relationship was stunted at best. Tifa could attest to that. 

Tifa. Cid had stuck to his word and not told, otherwise she’d have been down here waiting, too. And she would not have been silent in her reproach. He was grateful for the chance to slip into his room quietly, shed his clothing and step under the lukewarm water of the small shower. He closed his eyes and sighed, the water plastering his hair to his face and neck and washing the blood and grime away. 

He toweled off, fell into bed naked, hair dampening the pillow and not caring. The room swam a little, as his body oriented to the sudden lack of motion and he shut his eyes and went with it until it settled and there was only the cool quiet of Midgar in the earliest part of morning. 

He dreamed of hunting down wasteland scum, strangely soundless fighting. He dreamed of Diablo, sitting on an outcrop of rock silently watching, of himself approaching ready to take up the fight where it had left off. Of Diablo’s features fading, melting into finer more elegant flesh and bone, fall of silver hair, eyes so pale a blue that they came across as silver in the right light. Sephiroth smiled, faint twitch of the lips, not moving to meet him head on, just sitting, nothing of the madness that was all Cloud could easily remember now when he thought of him, in his eyes. Like how his eyes used to be, before he’d gone over the edge. When he’d been a man other men had aspired to be. A man that inspired respect and love - -

Cloud woke to the dull blare of the Sector 7 iron works factory horn announcing to the world that day shift had begun. Light poured through the cracks in the blinds of a brighter sort than that to which he’d fallen asleep. He’d gotten a couple of hours sleep, tops. But he felt better because of it. He considered ignoring his body’s internal clock and burrowing back into the covers, but Tifa would wonder and he disliked lying to her almost as much as he did having to endure a lecture. Better by far to avoid the issue. 

So he pulled on a T-shirt and the oldest, most care-worn pair of jeans he owned and ambled down stairs. It smelled of smoked meat and coffee this morning, the odors wafting out from the kitchen beyond the swinging doors behind the bar. Barrett sat at one of the round tables with Marlene and a handful of other kids, eating breakfast. The big man nodded at him, grunting something unintelligible through a mouthful of food. Cloud nodded back and strolled to the kitchen, thinking breakfast a fine idea. 

Cid was back there with Tifa, a spatula in hand, tossing a handful of diced meat into scrambled eggs. Apparently his internal clock was as insistent as Cloud’s, to be up so early after a sleepless night. 

Tifa leaned back against a counter, happy to let someone else take over the cooking duties that usually fell on her. It wasn’t that Cloud, or Barrett weren’t willing, just that they sucked at it, talents lying in other areas. 

“Good morning,” she smiled at him. 

He nodded at her and went for the coffee. 

“I’m putting together a care package to take down to Sector 9,” she said. “A lot of people lost everything in the fire last night and the radio says the shelters are overflowing.”

It was a more benevolent response than going out and killing wastelanders, though it was debatable which course of action the victims might have appreciated more. 

“I’ll see if I have anything to add on,” he promised, which he figured was the reply she wanted. 

Cid gave him a look over his shoulder, but refrained from comment. Cloud didn’t bother to ask where Vincent was, Vincent being somewhat less than a morning person. 

He went out to the garage with coffee and a scrambled egg wrap on the pretense of scrounging up donations. Sat down instead and took the time he hadn’t early this morning to clean the blood off his blades. 

It was cathartic, the maintenance of his weapons. Afterwards, he found an old backpack and threw in a canteen and a few battered travel utensils, a few other odds and ends that he never used, a pale purple T-shirt that someone had given him, because pale purple just wasn’t his color and brought it out to Tifa as she was climbing into the truck to head down sector 9 way. 

He went back into the bar once she’d gone, and Barrett had herded the kids off to school. Cid was at the bar, pretty much the same spot he’d been early this morning, nursing a cigarette and coffee, empty plate pushed to one side. 

Cloud nodded, wary, not used to Cid and long silences and wondered what Vincent had told him of last night’s activities. Of Cloud’s little break with sanity. 

“Good run last night, huh?” Cid finally said, stubbing out the smoke. “Hear you thinned out the current wasteland lowlife population, right nice.”

Cloud shrugged, uncomfortable talking about deaths at his hands. 

“Heard there weren’t no sign of the big man out there.”

“No,” Cloud agreed. 

“Think he’s flown the coop, after all?”

Cloud didn’t know. Couldn’t begin to fathom what went on in Diablo’s Sephiroth influenced mind. He didn’t bother to answer. 

Cid frowned, blue eyes narrowed. Then shook his head and leaned over the bar to snag the coffee pot and refill his cup.

“Talking to you is like talking to Goddamned Vincent,” he muttered, which meant Vincent had been miserly with the details. Cloud was grateful for it. 

“What the hell you want?” Barrett’s voice from outside, reverberating with agitation. Cid perked up, eyes turning towards the front door in interest. The hairs on the back of Cloud’s arms tingled, not quite the hackle rising sixth sense he got at life threatening danger, but close to it. 

The door slammed open and Barrett stomped half way in, face twisted in a glower. He stood there, blocking egress and Cloud could just make out dark suited figures waiting outside. 

“There some smarmy bastards come all the way from the fancy side o’town looking for you, Spiky.” 

Shinra. If they’d come here looking for trouble of some sort, he was weaponless. Of course, Barrett was never without firepower, and who knew what dangerous toys Cid had secreted about his person. But then again, it was old habit to assume Shinra looking for him automatically meant the shit was about to hit the fan. Shinra owed him nowadays and Shinra was depleted enough in resources not to come looking for trouble that it damn well ought to have learned would only cost it manpower and assets. 

Still he didn’t like them showing up at his home, and stalked across the bar, not wanting any confrontation that had a whisper of a chance of turning destructive to take place inside Tifa’s bar. 7th Heaven had sustained enough damage lately because of him.

There weren’t a troop of them outside, though, just Reno and Rude and Cloud figured even without a blade in hand, he could take them in a pinch. 

Rude still had his arm in a sling and if Rufus had sent out people to give Cloud grief, then it was doubtful one of them would have been a man with a disability. 

He slipped past Barrett and stared silent inquiry. 

“So somebody boosted an official Company ride last night and went out into the wastelands to do a little taking of the law into their own hands,” Reno started off. 

Cloud continued to stare, waiting for the point. 

“Wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?” Reno prompted after a moment, a vague hint of irritation in his voice at the lack of comment, presumably. Though you’d think he’d be used to one-sided conversations after years working with Rude. 

“Why you come here askin’?” Barrett cut in. “What you want, us to do your job for you?”

Reno’s mouth curved up in a smile, but it didn’t reach his eyes. Rude didn’t shift, silent and utterly unreadable behind his black glasses. 

“Girl returned it this morning. Kidnap victim from old sector 9. She was a little sketchy on the facts, but there were a few descriptive details that made me think I’d pop round and talk to you, Cloud.”

“I’m not much in the mood for talking this morning.” 

“As opposed to the chatterbox you turn into in the evening?” Reno asked.

Barrett snorted softly, amused despite himself. Cloud kept staring, waiting for either an accusation or an end to the conversation. 

“So you’re saying you don’t know anything about this little spree of vigilantism out in the waste?”

“Since when have I gone out of my way to do your job for you? It _is_ your job, right? Keeping the city safe?”

Rude’s mouth twitched down in a frown. Cloud could see the spark of irritation in Reno’s long eyes. A sore point with them, maybe, that Shinra had never been as good as it thought it was at protecting the world that it liked to think it controlled. Used to control. Now, in the aftermath of continental catastrophe, the company was hanging on by its nails to that faded power. It had to rankle. Cloud couldn’t give less of a damn. 

He turned, starting past Barrett and back into the bar. 

“Did you hear about the auctions at Gold Saucer?” Reno asked to his back. Cloud hesitated, not liking the tone in Reno’s voice, like he was sitting on information that Cloud might find interesting. 

“What you talking about?” Barrett did him the favor of actually having to prompt more information. 

“Since Cloud here helped wreck the place, its been closed for repair - - a lot of people left in a pinch - - or didn’t leave at all - -a lot of abandoned shit and whatnot. Personal possessions, vehicles - - bikes. They’re holding a public auction to get rid of anything that hasn’t been claimed and taken off Gold Saucer property. Think I’ll head that way and see what I can pick up for cheap. Never know what junk got left behind.”

Fenrir. Cloud felt just a tinge of that red come back that he’d felt last night. Reno had a talent for bringing it out. He clenched his fists and asked. “When?”

“What, you didn’t see the public notices? They’re posted in every Shinra outpost from here to Gongaga.”

Cloud turned and gave him a look.

“Three days.” Reno shrugged, turned and started to saunter back to the shiny black Shinra SUV parked down the street. Rude stood a moment, then moved to follow. 

“So give us a holler if you hear anything about that incident out in the wastes,” Reno rolled down the tinted driver’s side window. 

Cloud watched them navigate down the street, Barrett at his side.

“What the hell they talking about?” the big man asked. 

Cloud wasn’t sure if he meant the wasteland activities or the Gold saucer auction. 

“Kid’s bike is still parked over at Gold Saucer,” Cid supplied from inside the doorway. 

“Well ain’t that a hell of a thing.” Barrett shook his head. “Don’t seem right, them sellin’ off folk’s belongings like that. You better get on over there, Spiky.”

“I’d give you a lift,” Cid eased out onto the street, thumbs in his belt loops, new cigarette dangling from his lips. “But - - well, I’m ground bound at the moment.”

Which meant hitching a ride with a cargo transport or a public flight. The latter was costly and the former not a sure thing. Three days wasn’t a damn lot of time. 


	18. Chapter 18

For a minute there, Reno had thought Cloud was going to jump down his throat and maybe yank out a few vitals. He’d had that sort of just over the edge of homicidal look on his face. And not that Reno was intimidated by Cloud - - because he damned well wasn’t and screw anyone who claimed otherwise, Rude included - - but taking on unbalanced pseudo super-soldiers just wasn’t something he liked to do before breakfast had really had the chance to settle. 

Besides which, the boss had laid down a ‘hands off Strife’ law and Reno was already treading thin ice after letting certain things slip to that _other_ less than sane, less than wholly ‘living’ member of Cloud’s little clique, Valentine. The boss was still maneuvering things to his liking, Reno was sure of it. Moving pieces across a board for reasons he didn’t feel the need to share with just any old grunt on his payroll. No big surprise there. Rufus tended to think six steps ahead on a bad day and a man that liked his job and his benefits didn’t go out of his way to question, he just did what he was told and did it well. 

So Reno delivered a bit of information to Cloud per orders, along with a little bit of sly insinuation of his own - - because riling Cloud made him happy in ways that halfway verged on sexual - - and headed back to the office. Rude was a silent presence riding shot gun beside him, more of a frown than usual on his lantern jawed face. 

It was the arm. He was on light duty, explicit orders from the mouth of Tseng himself, and he damned well didn’t like it. There was nothing Rude hated more than the idea of not pulling his own weight and then some. Reno never had suffered from the same affliction. Light duty or paid leave wouldn’t have hurt his feelings in the least. 

“So, I told him,” he reported to the man himself, after Elena directed them up to Rufus’ office. He was half thinking about dragging Rude down to Fu Long Moo’s for some drinks and gratuitous observation of the scantily clad - - or not clad at all - - pole dancers the club employed. Rude needed a few stiff shots to loosen him up. A lap dance probably wouldn’t hurt, if he got enough booze into Rude that he’d allow it. 

Rufus nodded. He had a nice big shiner under one eye and a swollen nose that looked painful as hell. Payback from Cloud, which Reno figured, all previous grudges aside, the boss had had coming. In spades. 

Rufus pushed a little metal case, not much bigger than a pocket tool kit across the desk top towards Reno. “You’re heading to Gold Saucer. Elena will fill you in on the details you don’t know on the way.”

Reno shrugged and picked up the case, turning it over in his hands. Rufus arched a brow at him, hands long and idle on his uncluttered desk. “I’m trusting you with a critical component, Reno. An irreplaceable component. Don’t fuck up.”

“I never fuck up, boss.” 

Elena snorted softly, eyes never leaving the boss’s face. Rude’s frown deepened. 

Elena was just being a bitch, but Rude, Rude wasn’t happy at all about being left on this side of the pond. Reno wasn’t particularly happy about it himself. Elena was as professional as they got and damned efficient to boot, but he’d take a wounded Rude over her any day of the week. Most especially during a twelve hour flight across the ocean, Shinra red-eyes notoriously lacking in-flight entertainment. 

Rufus just looked at him, until he got the idea that the meeting was over, so he nodded, backing away a step before turning and sauntering away. Rude tailed him out, Elena lingering, getting some last minute face time in with the boss - - brown-nosing little bitch. But being in with Tseng, who was in with the boss as tight as you got, had its perks. 

“I don’t like it,” Rude growled softly, surprising Reno because Rude’s complaints generally began and ended with various degrees of scowling. 

“Yeah, well, I don’t much like it either. Ever since that night in Vuutan with the home brewed snakejuice, she’s had it in for me. It’s going to be one long fucking flight.”

“That’s not what I mean.”

Reno’s mouth quirked. “Worried about me with you not there to watch my back?”

Rude said nothing, the ‘ _scowl_ ’ starting in. He kept it all the way down to Equipment, where Reno starting picking and choosing which gear to take with him on the trip. A little light body armor might not be a bad thing. Nothing that would restrict his movement, but enough to keep errant bullets or stray washes of materia powered strikes from piercing flesh. 

Rude stood just inside the door, watching him stuff gear in a duffle, until his phone went off and he shoved his good hand into his jacket pocket to dig it out. He put it to his ear, listened and grunted an affirmative after a moment. You really had to know Rude to get all the nuances of his methods of communication. 

“I’ve got to go,” he clicked the phone shut and looked over the top of his glasses at Reno. “You be careful, partner.”

Reno grinned at him. “ _You_ be careful.”

After all, Rude had the broken arm. All Reno had to contend with was staying out of the way of two of the most dangerous men on the planet in the hopes of resurrecting one that was on a whole ‘nother level altogether, because the boss had Gods knew what sort of schemes going. 

He was golden. 


	19. Chapter 19

Cloud was hot to get across the pond and even though Cid was presently minus the means to personally give him a lift, he wasn’t without contacts. The community of long haulers that weren’t Company contracted was small and, Cid liked to think, elite. Cid was on the in with all of them. Had traded drinks with most all of them. Slept with at least one of them, back in the day.

Midgar was a major trading hub and if they were lucky, there’d be a ship or two all loaded up and ready to take off west. 

So the kid commandeered Barrett’s old truck and they headed out to the Midgar port facility. Cid’s captain’s credentials got them through the gates sectioning off the hangers from the more public portions of the complex. 

They hit Port authority and Cid sauntered in like he had legitimate business, nodding idly to the woman behind the desk as he scanned the incoming/outgoing board behind her, looking for friendly names on a time schedule that might be of some use to him. 

The _Meritan_ had just left dock, which was a damned shame, because her captain owed him a favor. _Shy Lady_ was in port but her departure date was two days from now and she was headed to Nibelheim via a stopover at Gongaga, which was a good hop skip and a jump from Gold Saucer if the kid had to take the ground route from there. It would be cutting it damn close. Still, a captain might be convinced to pull her crew in early if there was profit to be had in it and Cid had a few favors he could offer. 

“C’mon,” he nodded at Cloud, who was loitering in the doorway and the kid pushed himself off the jamb and followed in Cid’s wake. Still pissed and not bothering to hide it and if he’d been armed people likely would have given him a damned wide berth. Pretty as he was, there was just something about Cloud in a mood that tended to make folks nervous. 

The _Shy Lady_ was in a slip down at the end of the docks. Mid-sized craft with years of piecemealing making a patchwork of her outer shell. Cid was a master of piecemealing himself and had no problem with a creative crew doing what needed when supplies were short and times tough. 

“Loose the scowl,” Cid suggested as they reached the foot of the open cargo bay doors and came under the scrutiny of the lone deckhand on duty there. “Or they likely won’t feel inclined to invite us onboard.”

Whether Cloud managed that feat on not, Cid didn’t bother to look, stepping forward and hailing the _Shy Lady_ crewman with a ‘Hey there, your Captain on board?’

The crewman, a junior member by the look of him and not of Cid’s acquaintance peered down at them warily. 

“She is. What’s it to you?”

“Give her a holler and tell her Cid Highwind’s come round for a visit.”

A few minutes later, the _Shy Lady’s_ captain, a rawboned woman some years Cid’s senior appeared at the cargo bay and peered down at them. Just like him, she’d used to be Company way back when and just like him, she’d parted on bad terms. 

“Leanne,” Cid nodded up at her.

“Cid. It’s been a while.” 

“Too long.” 

“Heard through the mill that Sierra had some trouble.”

“Heard right.”

She frowned. Business competitors though they were, a body’s ship was sacrosanct. 

“Got a favor to ask.”

She frowned again, glancing beyond him at Cloud and maybe the kid had managed to wipe the ominous glower off his face, or maybe - - being female and not in the grave yet, she just liked the look of him - - because she looked back at Cid without a deepening of her own frown. 

“Come on up then,” she beckoned. “I’ll hear you out.”

* * *

“Kid here needs to get to Gold Saucer and I need to get back to Rocket town and see how ship repairs are going,” Cid finally got around to explaining after shots had been poured in the Captain’s cabin and he and she had traded customary and polite gossip. Cloud sat there the whole time, impatient as hell, but having the sense to know Cid was working an angle and hiding it best as he could. 

“I got room for a couple of passengers, long as they don’t mind riding in cargo. Won’t be stopping near Gold Saucer though. Close as I’ll come is Gongaga.”

“Three passengers, maybe,” Cid corrected, hoping Vincent might take the trip with him. You never damn well knew with Vincent, what he’d decide to do or exactly why. But there was still danger out there, gunning for Cloud in particular and Cloud’s acquaintances by association, so he figured Vincent would stay close, one way or another, Vincent’s protective instincts a far shot more defined than Vincent ever cared to admit. 

“Thing is,” Cid said, running a hand through his hair. “We got a bit of time crunch. Kid here needs to be in Gold Saucer by end week which means reaching Gongaga by tomorrow afternoon latest.”

Leanne shook her head. “No can do. Crew’s got two days downtime before we take off. ”

“I hear. But here’s the thing. With _Sierra_ down for repairs, I’ve got contracts that I’ve no way of fulfilling. Lotta gil that’s not lining my pockets that just as well might line the pockets of an honest independent instead of some company freighter.” Which was god’s honest truth and Cid lamented the loss hourly. Better he work out a temporary arrangement with his regular clients than have them seek out replacement long haulers on their own. He should have already done it, but he’d been a tad distracted, fighting for his life and all. 

Leanne knew the smell of gil when it wafted across her bow and got a speculative glint in her eye. “I could call them back in tonight. The promise of a good bonus might ease the pain of the loss of a night or two carousing the town. “

“It would me,” Cid agreed. 

She nodded, thinking no doubt of the _Sierra’s_ contacts and the benefit it could bring _Shy Lady_. “You make those calls and we’ll take off once the hold’s full and the crew’s back. Tonight maybe. Midnight latest.”

Which meant they’d reach Gongaga noontime tomorrow which was the best a man could expect, all things considered. 

* * *

Cid had gotten him a ride and a free ride at that and Cloud was grateful for it. It was just some broken part of him, that part that had a hard time forming polite conversation at the best of times, that couldn’t do more than nod and grunt to express that gratitude . Not when he was agitated and worried and feeling damned stupid for not having thought to go back and retrieve his belongings before this. Cid nodded back amenably enough though, when they were heading back to town, pleased enough with himself and his bargaining skills, not to be offended. 

Cloud parked inside the warehouse behind the bar, next to the stacks of lumber and scavenged building materials Barrett had scrounged up to repair the fire damage. He walked down to his garage while Cid went into the bar. Cloud wasn’t certain Vincent was even there, Vincent often scarce during the daylight hours. And Vincent was worse at actually answering his phone than Cloud, but he figured Cid had ways of tracking him down when he wanted to talk to him badly enough. 

He gathered up supplies and stuffed them in a backpack. Picked out various weaponry, the small things that might go unnoticed on a man when all attention was focused on the damned big sword on his back. Got out his oils and sat down to give leather gear a protective once over. A whetstone on the edge of his sword honed out any dulling earned during the little out to the wastelands the night before last. 

There was nothing else to do then, but bite the bullet and go tell Tifa he was heading out Gold Saucer way. She’d worry, current circumstances as they were and he hated being on the receiving end of well meaning concern. 

He shuffled in the back way, putting off the inevitable a little longer by heading upstairs and changing clothes. Black jeans, sleeveless sweater that was thick enough to pad leather gear straps and not chafe. He lamented the loss of his good boots, lost to some wasteland scum, somewhere in the desert. He’d look into getting something that didn’t have patched soles after he retrieved Fenrir. He’d have a little extra gil, since the ride over was free. 

“Cloud.” Tifa caught him stuffing gloves into his belt and he started, not even sure why he felt the twang of guilt. “Cid says you’re heading out tonight.”

“Yeah.”

She nodded, used to monosyllable answers. “I’m going with you. I’ll get Barrett to watch the bar.”

“No.” 

“Cloud, you’ve got a crazy man after you.”

“Good enough reason for you not be around me. You’ve got responsibilities here.”

“So do you,” she countered and it was solid hit. This was the only home he had and these people were as close to family as it were possible to get without sharing actual blood. Still, he’d brought trouble to their doorsteps because of that association, because something else close to him in another way, something that shared something more essential than simple blood couldn’t leave well enough alone. 

“If they coming looking for me here, Barrett can’t deal with them and protect the kids all alone.” He knew her weak spots as well. He also knew how to be painfully blunt. “And if _He_ follows me, all you’d be is a distraction.”

She lifted her chin, hurt welling in her eyes. But she was a reasonable woman. A pragmatic one who knew her limitations. And against something like Diablo/Sephiroth what he’d said was absolute truth. 

“Okay. Okay. But, you call me, hear? Don’t make me sit here and wonder, because it’s damned inconsiderate.”

He nodded and reached for the cell on the desk, showing it to her before stuffing it into his pocket. 

It was just a matter of waiting then, until Cid got the call from the _Shy Lady_ that the crew was in and they were ready to take off. 


	20. Chapter 20

Gongaga was a small inland town. Bigger than it had been before Genova, what with a lot of folks fleeing the larger cities, but still smaller than a lot of western settlements. Gongaga was big on farming and with the materia shortage nowadays, farming was a profitable industry. Profitable enough that there was a small port there now, with a little collection of storage silos and warehouses. Foodstuffs from Gongaga made it all the way across the sea now, as far as Midgar and Kalm. At least according to Cid, who seemed to know just about everything there was to know about who shipped what and where and what profit there was to be had in it. 

There hadn’t been much to do other than listen to Cid the ride over, other than doze, which was hard to do with turbulence jousting a body this way and that every few moments. The Sierra, Cloud had to admit, gave a whole lot smoother ride than Captain Leanne’s _Shy Lady._

How Vincent slept the whole trip was beyond Cloud. But he sat there, in the bucket seat across the aisle from Cloud with his lashes flush against pale cheeks from take off to landing almost. 

Cloud disembarked happily enough once the ship had settled in Gongaga port. Cid opted to stay and Vincent with him. The Shy Lady was only here long enough to fill half her hold and then it was off around the western coast to Utai to finish it up. Rocket Town was not far out of the way and the captain had agreed to drop Cid and Vincent off on the way there. 

“Don’t do nothing stupid. And I know it finds you like fleas find a dog, but avoid trouble, if you can.” Cid suggested as they parted company on the tarmac. “You know where we’ll be at if you need us. I got another little single engine prop, I can probably get in the air with a few hours tinkering if the need arises.”

“I’ve got your number.” Easier to agree to ask for help than stand there and argue. Cloud had gotten pretty good at mollifying concerned friends over the last few years. 

Vincent stood a few feet beyond, in the shadow of the _Shy Lady_ , eyes as shadowed and unreadable as ever. He inclined his head, acknowledgement of any number of things and said simply. “Be safe.”

And that was that. Cloud tromped off into Gongaga town without looking back, looking for chocobo rental. The terrain between Gongaga and Gold Saucer was less than predictable and the few motorized convoys that made the trip were slow going at best. A pair of good chocobo’s could be get him there in less than two days time if he kept sleep to a minimum and switched mounts every few hours. 

He found a dealer and haggled over the price, which was expected, until he and the old man found a mutually agreeable number. The birds were of good stock, long solid legs and small beady eyes that tracked a man when he moved, sizing him up to see what they could get away with. He picked two and strapped his gear to one and the small riding saddle to the other. The cinch went under small, blunt wings and the reins clipped to brass rings fastened to holes pierced through the chitinous cartilage of the beak. A good rider hardly needed them though, but Cloud didn’t know these birds and it was always better safe than sorry when taking off on strange animals into the wilds between Gongaga and Gold Saucer. 

He left Gongaga behind long before the Shy Lady lifted off from her spot in port. A good Chocobo could travel at a good clip for a damned long time over inhospitable ground. These were good birds, bred for this terrain. 

He was well into the forests north of Gongaga within a few hours, the birds weaving through close trunks and thick foliage like feathered eels. It was a game chocobo’s world wide liked to play, to dislodge unwary riders via low hanging branches. A rider had to stay vigilant and duck and weave when they did or end up on his ass with no thing but tail feathers in sight. 

He’d switched mounts four times by the time he felt the need to take a few hours rest himself. He stopped by the southern shore of the Dalphan river, as good a halfway point as any. Camp was dried rations, canteen water and his back against a smooth rock for a few hours light doze. 

Cloud’s internal clock was damned efficient. He roused two hours later, the starlight reflecting off the surface of the river. He geared the birds back up and was on his way. The chocobo’s took to the water without hesitation, fine webbing fanning out between their toes as they ran, necks extending as they maintained the speed it took to keep to the surface. It took minutes to cross at this narrow point and they were on the other side. Easier traveling on this side of the river. The forests were scarce, the land flat and increasingly arid. There was nothing but plains land and desert now, between him and the Gold Saucer. 

It took another day of hard riding to cross the span of flat dry lands between the river and the outcropping of mountains that backed the Gold Saucer facilities. He bypassed the park itself, the gleaming structure towering in the distance as he headed towards the trolley/parking/storage facility to the east. Even from a distance though, he could see the damage wrought. There was a webwork of scaffolding clinging to the outside of the great dome, as work progressed, patching the hole made by Diablo’s massive materia blast. It was the first time Cloud had seen it from the outside. 

The trolleys weren’t running, the cars immobile at the station with no passengers to transport. There was a great deal of ground activity though, huge construction vehicles carrying supplies to and from the park and the sprawling supply sheds flanking the parking areas. 

He’d left Fenrir in one of the covered parking areas, courtesy of the platinum park passport his unfortunate client had provided him. He’d had no idea at the time that he’d be leaving in the most unconventional of manners. A lot of things had happened that he hadn’t expected after Gold Saucer. 

He dropped the chocobo’s off at the stables, which catered to any number of rental services. From there he walked across the deserted grounds towards guest parking and storage. There was a bit more life there, a few dozen vehicles parked close to the low roofed warehouse that contained the main covered parking complex. There was a big placard outside the sliding hanger doors proclaiming the auction. He ground his teeth and headed towards the attendants booth near the smaller entrance. 

A pimple faced teenager in a short sleeved, yellow and red striped Gold Saucer uniform sat idly digging in one nostril when Cloud walked up. He extended a flyer with his free hand and said without looking up.

“Auction starts at six. Fill out the form and bring it back to register for bidding.”

“I’m here to pick up my vehicle.” Cloud ignored the form. 

The kid sighed, as though it were some great inconvenience to withdraw his hand paper still intact, and dragged his eyes up to look at Cloud. 

“I’ll need your storage ticket.”

The storage ticket was somewhere out in the debris of a desert bunker along with the rest of Cloud’s belongings that had been stolen by Diablo’s nest of lowlifes. 

“I don’t have it.” Cloud dug in his pocket and pulled out the extra key. “I have the key.”

The kid wasn’t impressed. “No withdrawals without proper Gold Saucer storage receipts. There’s always the auction, man.” 

Cloud felt a muscle start to twitch in his jaw. He was hungry, he was sleep deprived and there was enough desert dust in his clothing to make his skin itch. It was not a good day, patience wise. The very slight smirk on the young attendants face was the straw that shattered his reserve. 

The flat of his boot against the door beside the knob and the bolt tore through the tin of the frame. The attendant yelped, scrambling to his feet as Cloud strode through. He could hear him jabbering into a radio, calling security. Gold Saucer security was no particular threat and he’d deal with the situation when it arose. If it arose at all. Chances were only the barest minimum of security was in attendance, what with the lack of park goers and what there was most likely was at the Saucer itself. He might very well have time to get Fenrir and get out of there before they managed to reach the parking complex. 

The kid was trailing after him, crowing about security being on its way, and a lone mechanic in dirty coveralls alerted by the commotion started ambling in his direction. It was a big flat storage garage, but there weren’t that many vehicles and they were all clumped together in preparation of the auction. He could see Fenrir between a battered old truck and a roll bar studded all terrain buggy. 

He broke into a trot, preferring to avoid actual violence if he could. The mechanic veered to cut him off, but hesitated, getting a good look at the sword strapped to Cloud’s back and the expression on his face. Age trumped youth in the arena of common sense, because the man stopped short, a ‘this job don’t pay enough to get my ass kicked’, expression on his face and let Cloud pass on without incident, while the attendant continued to trail along. 

Fenrir seemed no worse for wear. Not even a speck of dust marring her chassis. She’d fared better than Cloud these last few weeks. He thumbed open the ignition panel and inserted the key. Triggered the side panel that would sheath his sword and slid the blade home as the teenaged attendant worked up the nerve to approach. 

“You’re in deep shit. Gold Saucer prosecutes to the full extent of the law, you know?”

“Shinra law?” Cloud swung a leg over the bike. “Good luck with that.”

He turned the key and the engine rumbled to life. Familiar power between his legs that calmed his nerves and allowed him a bit of empathy for a kid that might loose his job over this. 

The kid put a hand on the handle of the bike, like he had the muscle mass to stop it from moving forward. It was either a really brave move or a really stupid one. Cloud guessed at the latter. 

He looked at the offending hand, then up at the kid and revved the engine. The bike inched forward and the kid yelped, yanking his hand back and finally had the sense to take a hasty few steps back. 

Cloud didn’t waste the opportunity. Tires spinning on concrete, he let Fenrir loose. Through the shattered door with a fraction of an inch to spare. He might have scraped the chrome on the left exhaust, but it was a small price to pay to be outside with his property intact. Security was on its way up the road from the east, a pair of gold striped vehicles bouncing up the trail from the direction of the Park. Cloud veered north with a burst of speed that there was no way they could match. There was a lot of inhospitable land surrounding the park, a lot of stark desert that a man could loose himself in. 

He was okay with the idea of loosing himself for while. A few days away from the crush of the city, or the press of responsibility, the stigma of trouble that had been looming over his shoulder since Diablo had first shown his scarred face. If he headed north, he’d reach Coral in a few days and maybe he could pick up a job there. He had a few contacts with the local couriers and a reputation for risking jobs that saner men would balk at. He’d need a bit of traveling money to get back across the ocean, Cid and Sierra not a viable option for hitching a ride with at the moment. 

Gold Saucer was a glint in the distance, the dust of any pursuit far gone in his wake. The Coral Mountains weren’t even a haze in the distance. He’d call Tifa in a few hours and let her know not to expect him for a while. The least he could do was relieve her fears. He felt a pang of guilt that he didn’t feel the urge to do more. 

* * *

“He’s heading north.” Reno put down the binocular, and shaded his eyes from the glare of desert sun with his free hand. 

“As planned,” Elena said shortly, standing next to him at the edge of the catwalk scaffolding near the top of the Gold Saucer repair efforts. 

The wind whipped hair and clothing like it had a vendetta up here, carrying stray bits of dust and sand on its currents. Reno lowered his shades to protect against hurled debris and glanced aside at Elena. She was small and stark in her black suit, flying blonde hair an incongruous component to her all business demeanor. 

He squinted back towards the expanse of northern desert and all he could see with the naked eye was the faint trail of stirred dust in the wake of Cloud’s bike. 

“It’s a damn big desert,” Reno commented. “You think they’re really gonna cross paths or is the boss just pipe dreaming?”

“The _Boss_ only makes sure bets,” Elena said darkly, giving him a look, as if he’d been trash-talking Rufus. Gods, but he’d hate to have to work with her full time. But then Tseng was no barrel of laughs himself, so Reno figured they complimented each other perfectly. 

“Yeah? Seems to me he’s been placing an awful lot of chancy wagers. And sure, if he wins, he wins big. If not - - I wouldn’t want to be in his shoes and pay that piper.”

Elena frowned, not bothering to answer. All loyalty aside, she had to know he was right. The stakes were damned high in this little gamble and the first lives lost if things went south were more than likely to be those in the first line of defense against Rufus Shinra. Namely the Turks. 

“Lets go.” Elena started down the catwalk. 

“What’s the hurry? He’s tagged.” And Cloud was, a neat little tacking device having been planted on that big bike of his. They could track him anywhere. 

She didn’t answer that either. Nerves. She was no less tense about this than he was. She just didn’t want to talk it out. 

They took a service elevator up, to the very top of the saucer structure, where a sleek Shinra transport waited on the VIP landing pad. A squadron of Shinra’s finest waited within. No simple Blues, these, but the highly trained specialists that carried out the sort of dangerous tasks that never saw the light of day. No Super soldiers, that lot was an endangered species on its way to extinction, but as close as you could get nowadays. Who knew, maybe ten or twenty of them, along with a Turk or two might even be able to do the impossible and take down an actual Super Soldier. Stranger things had happened. And if the Boss had his way, they were damned close to putting that theory to test. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, comments and thoughts are more than welcome.


	21. Chapter 21

It wasn’t fear that had chased him here, but he had run all the same. Back across the water to escape the growing tumult in his head. The growing pressure from the ghost of that silver haired bastard who had plagued him in life and plagued him more in death. If you could call it death, when a damned wily soul refused to dissipate in the lifestream. 

It made him mad. Furious. Made him see red. The corpses of the crew of the company freighter he’d stowed away on during the crossing leaked red inside the shell of their ship. He’d taken his time with them, immersing his arms up to the elbows in red as their screams dwindled, because he knew the snake inside his head found no entertainment in mutilation for the same of mutilation. The snake pursued greater purposes, so the snake thought. 

Diablo simply pursued the scent of his own pleasures. And his pleasures were always tinged in crimson. Soaked in it, when blacker moods took him. 

He hadn’t run in fear from stark lands surrounding Midgar, but from a stubborn desire to deny the Snake what it most wanted. Oh, he’d go back for Strife - - he had to, Snake’s desires or no - -because Diablo could never very well let be something that had pricked his interest. But for now, he’d fought the urges and the roiling discontent of the thing inside his head and left the hordes of Rovers that followed him to plague Midgar in his absence. 

The deserts of the west had always calmed him to a degree. Always offered stark solace from the monsters that rightfully lived in his head. And there were always those starving souls, living on the fringe of civilized society that would follow him, drawn to his power and his ferocity like moonflies to body heat. 

He left a trail of bodies in his wake, from the seaside port he landed in to the edges of the great desert that spanned half a continent, the redness this trembling thing that crowded the edges of his vision. 

He found the remains of his desert base, but the old Shinra bunker had been demolished, crumbled in upon itself by some massive internal eruption. There was only a ragged crater in the desert floor now. No sign of the men he’d left behind when he’d crossed the ocean seeking the Snake’s agenda. Well, maybe not entirely the Snake’s. Diablo could wholly appreciate the notion of Rufus Shinra’s intestines sliding through his fingers, slick and warm and pulsing while the man himself twitched, not quite yet dead. 

The destruction of the bunker made him angry and if there had been living flesh about, he would have sank his blades happily enough to appease the hunger the rage summoned within. As it were, there was nothing but sand and jagged metal, so he got into his stolen ATV and headed north, remembering a small settlement somewhere abouts within a days drive or so. 

He saw the smoke before he reached the village. Smelled the tinge of fire and blood and destruction. The darkness hid a great deal, but smoldering fires made silhouettes of a handful of round huts, of a dozen or so ragtag vehicles scattered around the perimeter of the settlement, of a bonfire in the center of what passed for town and a few dozen figures carousing around it. 

Diablo cut his engine beyond the furtherest vehicle, inhaling the scent of devastation in the hair. He strapped on an arm blade, slid another blade through his belt and walked towards the celebration. There was a corpse on the ground in his way. An old desert dweller, craggy face smeared with blood. Another few piled against the side of a hut. There was a choked cry from the group around the fire, and a responsive spree of jubilation from the gathering. He recognized faces backlit from the fire. Men of his, who had found entertainments without his guidance. Men of his who gathered around a makeshift scaffold - - what might have been a drying rack for skins - - but now served a different purpose. Bodies dangled. Feet bare inches from the ground, jerking and twitching as they strangled, nooses tight around their necks, faces purple and bug eyed. Men on the ground prodded them as they struggled, spinning them about, slicing them with the tip of blades as they slowly strangled. 

His heart pounded, excitement rising at the torment. At the prospect of more when he saw the handful of bound gagged, victims waiting their turn. His cock was hard in his pants. Painfully so. He circled the group to get close, predators so drunk with their own power that they didn’t even realize a more dangerous animal was among them. A woman breathing her last breath fixed him with her bulging eyes and something inside him rebelled. Revulsion surged up. Before he knew it, he’d lunged forward, swept out the arm with the blade and three throats were severed clean through, a swift end to suffering. 

Diablo screamed in rage, even as the ragged men around him did, robbed of their entertainment. The snake inside him urged him to take out the remaining captives. One fatal materia enhanced stroke would take them all out fast and efficient. The Snake didn’t balk at death, only at the needless prolonging of it. 

Diablo controlled the urge with an effort of will. Swung around when guns and blades were leveled at him and fixed the fire lit mob with a feral smile. He could take them all out without breaking a sweat, but their deaths at the moment might not serve him so well as their obedience. 

“Is this a mistake you want to make, Rifkin?” he asked softly, and the rat-faced little bandit at the forefront of the group blinked in shock. There was only a moment’s hesitation before the sawed off shotgun he held was lowered.

“Boss? That you?”

Diablo lifted a brow, not bothering with an answer. 

“You’ve been playing without me.”

“Uh, well - - yeah. Gotta eat.” Rifkin shifted nervously. Those around him did. Scared. That was clear enough from the scent of them. Vaguely Diablo recalled slicing through their number in a fit of rage. Oh well. They’d either get over it or they wouldn’t. He didn’t care much either way. 

= = =

The village was a smoking ruin behind him when they left next morning, decorated with the corpses of its inhabitants. He had followers again and some part of him was pleased with it. He always had liked playing the role of Alpha dog. Always liked having throats bared to his teeth. The Snake had retreated last night, when he couldn’t reassert control. Retreated when Diablo had purposefully made those last kills brutal and slow. 

He took them north, away from the Blue patrolled territory surrounding Gold Saucer. When he wanted to confront a force of Blue’s it would be on his own terms, with a clear prize behind the wall of flesh. Namely Rufus Shinra. For now there were plenty of small outposts like the one his men had decimated and even a good-sized town or two scattered throughout the vast desert. Plenty of oasis where men gathered out of necessity. 

They stopped at one such and robbed a trader of his goods and his life and had a right nice little feast by the deep well in the middle of nowhere. They burned the one traveler’s shelter, but the well itself they left intact. Even bandits and madmen held a healthy respect for water out here. 

It was long after they’d moved on, and set up camp in the midst of jutting natural sandstone monuments that he felt the sense of - - familiarity - - out there in the vast darkness. It drifted to him, out of the distance like the sweet scent of blood. 

He lay on the stone ledge where he’d made his bed above and apart from the pack that followed him and extended his senses like a desert wolf scenting distant prey. His instincts had always been razor sharp, his sense of fear ultra fine - - but this, this feeling made the hairs on the back of his arms stand up and his spine tingle. The Snake inside him stirred, interest sudden and keen. But he pushed that awareness down, and surprisingly enough it retreated with no contest of wills. 

It made Diablo grin in the darkness, baring his sharp teeth at what might have been an imagined victory. Or might not. Hard to tell these days. But the awareness was still there - -the trickle of some sense beyond physical that spurred the predator in him. 

He chose his gear sparingly. Leather arm sheathes sporting the harnesses for his arm blades. A few other nasties secreted about his person. Not much else. He didn’t need it to make a kill. Not a normal one, at any rate. On impulse, he slipped a blade, three-foot katana style, out from the pile of gear next to one of his sleeping followers as he moved through them. 

Swords weren’t his style. Never had been, but maybe what was out there, stirring his senses wasn’t normal. And at the moment, the hunter in him was too motivated to question his choice of weapons. 

Instinct pulled at him, driving him northeast. The desert sky was clear enough for the moonlight to make crests and waves of corrugated sand. He was beginning to doubt himself, the validity of his senses when he saw the glow of fire. Orange light secluded by the shelter of stacked shale and sandstone. 

He stopped the ATV half mile away, and padded across the dust-covered earth on foot. Predator silent, closing in on the kill. He’d always been the best of them, those comrades of his who had been trained to slink through the night to make their silent kills with none the wiser. The most enthusiastic if not the most efficient, because sometimes - - sometimes, he’d gotten carried away with the process. Sometimes the smell of blood, the feel of it, had been a little too addictive. 

He circled the outcropping of rocks that formed a shelter around the fire, saw the evidence of a stark campsite. The dark lump of a bedroll. The silhouette of a bike near the rocks. No warm body.

He went tense, night sensitive eyes scanning the rocks around him. A glint of metal against the shadows of a higher outcropping and Diablo sprung backwards, bounding off an edge of rock to find his own high vantage, flinging an arc of materia garnered destruction from one arm blade as he sought higher ground. 

Rock exploded, flying shrapnel illuminated by the momentary brightness of the blast. He looked down, through settling dust at the figure of a man with a damned big blade on the ground, untouched by the explosion. Fast enough to avoid the debris of the aftermath. 

Laughter burst forth, uncontrollable. Not his senses pricked after all in the dark of night, but the Snake’s, which were always attuned to this particular prey. He ought to be annoyed, but the opportunity was simply too precious to hold grudges. 

“Must be fate, eh, boy?” He called down and moonlight glinted off narrowed blue eyes below. “You and me meeting out here all alone?”

No response, pale hair, pale skin, dark clothing. Gunmetal dull length of broad blade that most men couldn’t have hefted, much less handled with the deft precision of the boy down there. Not so much a boy though, having served the same master he had, once upon a time, having endured the dubious attentions of that master, just like him. Dangerous. Snake’s desires notwithstanding, he’d enjoyed these last weeks. It had been a long time since he’d played with something capable of giving back as good as it got. Almost he might regret ending it. Almost. 

“Oh, “ he purred, summoning the power of the materia embedded in his body, channeling it through the weapon bound materia in his arm blade. “The things I’m gonna do to your corpse.”

He flung another blast, wide band of destruction that would harder to avoid and left down in its wake. The kid erupted through the wash of energy, blade or self induced aura of shielding clinging to his body, shedding energy like water, sword swinging up in an underhanded arc that might have taken Diablo’s legs off at the knee, if he hadn’t twisted, mid-air and blocked the swipe with the edge of an arm blade. Impact jarred his arm and he felt the crick as metal protested and gave way. 

He cursed, using the impact to push himself away, landed easily and stared with disgust at the spidery crack radiating out from the chip in his arm blade. He’d had these blades for a good long time and nothing had ever threatened their soundness. 

He laughed again, amusement overriding irritation. Leapt out of the way as Cloud came at him, kicking up a wave of dust with the swing of his blade. 

Cling. Clang. Clakk! Metal against metal. The jar of flesh and bone when they were close enough that blades weren’t an issue. If the quarters had been closer, with no room to maneuver that big sword, Diablo would have happily discarded his own blades, hand to hand fighting one of his specialties. Ripping into Cloud’s flesh with his sharp nailed hands would have been uniquely satisfying. Tearing out his heart with his own blood stained fingers, digging into his soft belly. The Snake inside him roiled, surging close to the surface, stirred by the conflict or by the boy or both. Who knew? 

Diablo didn’t need to force it down. He hadn’t the concentration to try. The Snake’s instincts when it came to fighting were no poorer than his own. The Snake tended towards offensive, as did Diablo and the Snake was enjoying this. 

Cloud came at him, crossed blades, lunged close enough for him to see the boy’s face, tense and serious and for a moment, Diablo faded to the background, crowded out of his own consciousness by the squatter in his head. 

“Are you even trying, Cloud?” His lips formed the words, independent of his will and they were laced with a calm cynicism that was foreign to him. 

Cloud hissed, jerking back, seeing something in Diablo’s face that made him flinch. Diablo silently screamed, clawing his way back to the surface. 

“Boundaries, motherfucker!!” he roared, raking the nails of one hand down the side of his face, drawing blood. 

Cloud stared at him, ten feet distant, as if he were a raging madman. Which made him grin, blood taste in his mouth, despite the irritation. 

He tensed, ready to spring back towards Cloud, and something stung his shoulder. He twisted his head; saw the shaft of a small metal dart. Plucked it out and stared, brows drawn in consternation. And then his head exploded. 

Or the presence inside it did. Blinding surge of power. Swelling so huge and so fast that Diablo felt as if he were being swallowed whole. He screamed, but even inside his own head it sounded muffled, dwindling even as he dwindled. 

And then there was nothing. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, comments and thoughts are much appreciated.


	22. Chapter 22

Tifa very rarely complained, even when he was being an ass and Cloud loved her for it. It took a lot to get her to the point where letting off steam at him was beyond her ability to control and it had been a while since she’d felt the need to vent. Calling and telling her he was foregoing the trip home in lieu of traveling around the western continent for an unspecified amount of time hardly elicited more than a sigh and a admonishment to be careful. He got more bitching out of Cid.

It didn’t stop him from feeling guilty, because there was work to be done repairing the damage done by wastelanders that would never had targeted the bar in the first place save for him. Wastelanders that might still slink into town looking for trouble. But, then again, maybe not. He and Vincent had whittled their number down and at heart the lot of them were cowards who’d already gotten their asses kicked by Tifa and Barrett once. Without Diablo prodding them into attacking something more dangerous than themselves, they’d stick to shadow attacks on hapless travelers and unsuspecting folks at the edges of town.

And he had to believe that Diablo himself had abandoned the area. The man might be a lot of things and none of them pleasant, but cowardly wasn’t one. If he’d been around when they’d made their little foray into the wastelands outside Midgar, he’d have made his presence known. 

So after doing his duty and calling home, Cloud pocketed his cell and headed out to commune with the wilderness as he meandered his way north towards Coral. 

The wastes out here were a lot starker than the ones surrounding Midgar. Dryer, hotter. A lot longer distance between settlements and the ones there were, were small and rustic to the point of being tribal. Not welcoming of strangers in their midst. There were traveler’s oasis’ here and there though - - waypoints that offered water and sometimes a nomadic trader with overpriced foodstuffs to offer - - where a body might refill his canteens and get a bit of something not salted or freeze-dried. 

There was a good-sized town about a day and half’s ride to the northeast. Or so he’d heard. An old desert trading spot that had grown over the decades and managed to escape outside influences. Since Fenrir had needs other than water and fresh fruit, he headed that way, in the hopes of filling her tanks. 

Sleep, however was needed, if a man wanted his wits about him, so making camp was more a requirement than an amenity. There was no schedule to keep, and therefore no reason to push himself to the point of exhaustion. So camp it was, in the shelter of a group of wind weathered rocks that looked as if some giant hand had, in a moment of leisure, stacked them one upon the other with haphazard carelessness. There were clusters of these formations dotting the barren landscape and he had to wonder what geological event had created them. 

The desert was harsh and filled with predators, men least among them, so a road-wise traveler never let his guard down, even when sleep was upon him. Cloud hadn’t always been a light sleeper, but necessity over the years had made him one. It was that trait, that ingrained sixth sense, which woke him before dawn was even a purple haze on the horizon. 

It saved him having his throat slashed in the midst of night in all probability, Diablo striking him as the sort of killer that would as soon strike an unarmed, unguarded man from behind, as one prepared to face him head on. 

The twist of fate that had put the man on his trail, Cloud could only guess at and curse, but backing down was not an option. He was tired and he was angry and ready to finish this once and for all. 

There were no innocents to stay his hand or drugs to dull his reflexes this time, nothing but his blade against Diablo’s, his determination against a madman’s bloodlust. And when one of Diablo’s arm blades snapped - - and that flash of disbelief/anger crossed Diablo’s scarred face - - damn, but it felt good. Of course the anger didn’t last, replaced by maniacal laughter and the man came at him with renewed vigor, slashing with the one whole arm blade and the jagged edge of the broken one alike. 

It was only when he closed in, clashing close enough to see the engraving on the dog tags swinging from Diablo’s neck, to see the glint in his eyes, that something changed. That flash of mako green that he saw in his nightmares and a shift in the expression. 

_Are you even trying, Cloud?_ Smooth inflection to Diablo’s rough voice. Not Diablo at all and it sent shivers up Cloud’s spine, knowing who it was. But then Diablo bounced backwards, shaking his head like a dog with a tick in its ear, screaming at himself. Perfect moment to strike, with an enemy waging war with something in his head and Cloud almost took it, save the distraction of a distant flash. A glint of reflection off a metallic surface in the dark vantage of a distant cluster of rocks. 

He hardly had time to register it, before Diablo was clutching at his shoulder, fingers closing in on the slim casing of a small dart. There was a look in his eyes, a second of consternation, before his face went tense. 

The process was no less gradual this time, than it had been the time before. A sudden vacuum of power, of air almost, like a rapid breath sucked in, and then expelled with enough force to send sand and dust exploding outwards like a million tiny bullets. 

Cloud lifted an arm to protect his eyes and when he lowered it, Diablo had been consumed by something much more dangerous. 

Sephiroth. 

Diablo’s worn leathers and thread bare tank top, his blood tested weapons all still intact, though they graced a taller body. Long, pale fingers lifted the dart that had taken Diablo and eyes fading from glowing mako green to green flecked blue narrowed, before lifting to meet Cloud’s.

Cloud tensed, ready to meet the attack that he knew would come. Waiting for the trigger to launch his own. 

Sephiroth flicked the dart away from him and it landed on the dusty earth between them. There was a tiny Shinra logo on the burnished metal. Cloud swallowed, realization dawning. They weren’t alone out here. And this confrontation had likely been no random event. This confrontation had been exactly what Rufus Shinra had planned from the get go. 

“Son of a bitch,” he muttered, pissed at being used yet again. Rightfully angry at the trouble Shinra had gone through to bring a monster back into the realm of the living one more time. 

He launched himself, not willing to let Sephiroth gain his bearings. Wanting the offensive for once in this damned miserable situation. He brought his blade down brutally and Sephiroth was hard pressed to block the blow, scrambling for footing on loose sand as he raised the whole arm blade still strapped to his forearm. It was not his weapon of choice. Whatever infusion of Jenova laced power that had triggered this metamorphosis, it had not brought him back this time complete with the murasame that he’d always favored. 

Sephiroth was nothing if not adaptable, though. He flung the damaged arm blade and it sailed close enough to Cloud to sever a few strands of wayward hair. Then he grasped the katana in his belt and he was sliding under the reach of Cloud’s thicker, longer blade, making a swipe at his legs. Not a killing blow, but one that Cloud damned sure one didn’t want to connect. He leapt backwards, summoning the energy of the materia embedded in his sword. He slashed it sideways and a lance of disruptive power tore horizontally above the dust and sand covered desert bedrock. 

Sephiroth took the brunt of it, deflecting only a fraction with the summoned force of the materia in the weapon of the man whose body he’d stolen. Off his game a great deal more this time than he’d been the last and Cloud had to wonder how much was due to that ‘virus’ Rufus had so skillfully manipulated into being delivered. 

Raw power not withstanding, there was still sheer skill to contend with. And that was in no way lacking. Not even hesitating to shake off the effect of a full frontal materia blast, Sephiroth came at him, forcing him back with a flurry of arm blade and katana strikes. 

“You’re working for Rufus Shinra, now?” Sephiroth growled, cyan eyes glinting through strands of silver clinging to sweat dampened skin. He hooked the edge of the arm blade in the hilt of Cloud’s sword and shoved him backwards. Hard. Cloud twisted, avoiding the slice aimed at his belly by the katana, kicking himself backwards and landing in a crouch. Being on Shinra’s payroll was not an insult he took lightly. 

“Fuck you.”

One silver brow rose and those long eyes glanced aside in the direction of the dart he’d discarded. Of course, Sephiroth had seen the logo, too. Of course he’d make assumptions. There were things going on behind those eyes that Cloud didn’t even attempt to figure out. God knew how Sephiroth’s mind worked. No less chaotic than Diablo’s, probably, even if it was a different sort of madness. 

“No?” Sephiroth circled, breathing calm and steady. Cloud forced his own to slow, swinging the tip of his blade to follow the predator’s dance. 

“Then what game is he playing? Was I so missed?”

Cloud clenched his jaw, not in the mood to enlighten the enemy. Sephiroth darted in, a teasing strike that Cloud parried. Testing. 

“I missed _you_ ,” Sephiroth said softly, rich velvet voice that never failed to trigger memories better left in the shadowy past. “More than a great many things. “

“Enough to drive your host into trying to kill me and all my friends? Flattering.” There was something - - off, here. Something that he couldn’t quite put a finger on. 

Sephiroth shrugged. “He was less sane than the last one. More of a taste for blood.”

Cloud growled and attacked. Bounded off a jutting ledge of rock and came down hard, slicing a rent into bedrock when Sephiroth rolled out of the way. 

They closed, a furious exchange of blows. Sand and dust swirled from the furor of the impacts. Stinging the eyes and obscuring vision. 

It made for a dangerous dance. 

There was the purr of something that was deeper than the wind, a flare of light that wasn’t materia based and Sephiroth ducked under his blade, hitting him hard, tackling him backwards. The dust sizzled where he’d stood, going electrified. He could feel the edges of it on his skin, hair standing on end. He glared, on his back, Sephiroth’s knee digging into his gut, then blinked, making out the dark shape of a craft through the haze of dust, hovering in the air above them. Dull black turrets shifting, tracking them. 

“Son of a - -” he shoved Sephiroth off and the man gave way easily enough, rolling to his feet, lifting his gaze to the airship. Another blast flared forth, electrifying the air and Cloud threw himself one way and Sephiroth the other in efforts to avoid being caught in the center of it. 

An arc of energy sliced upwards from Sephiroth’s vantage in the rocks and smashed into the aft side of the craft. It rocked, swerving north, picking up speed and curving back around, and this time when it came it was with gatling guns blazing, spitting out lead based destruction. It breezed past, tearing up the ground in the process. 

Cloud swore, two problems to keep track of now. 

Only, one of those problems had knocked him out of the way of that first shot and he was having a hard time fathoming why. 

“What’s his game?” Sephiroth yelled across the hundred or so feet that separated them. “Facilitating my crossing on the one hand and attempting to gun me down on the other?”

Cloud knew. Well, he knew a part of it. But, he didn’t have the time to debate with himself the pros and cons of sharing the information with Sephiroth before the gunship was back. It veered towards Sephiroth this time, bullets tearing into the earth. Sephiroth stood his ground in the center of the barrage, deflecting slugs with the arm blade, then launching himself skyward when the ship had passed over. The arm blade sheared through the tail wing and this time the ship wavered and kept wavering, control lost. It teetered in the air, careening west, thin trail of smoke trailing behind. 

Sephiroth came down and Cloud was there to meet him, determined to keep his upper hand now that attention could be focused back where it belonged. Sephiroth deflected the blow with the sword and metal that was cheaper made than that of the arm blade shattered, cracking off near the hilt. 

Sephiroth hissed and tossed the ruined weapon. Two blades down and Cloud was perfectly willing to destroy the third and the wielder in the process. He tensed to launch himself and Sephiroth held up his free hand, palm forward. 

“Wait.” There was a good deal of frustration in the word and though it shouldn’t have given Cloud pause, because getting Sephiroth at a disadvantage and keeping him there was the key to survival, Cloud couldn’t quite stop himself from hesitation. 

“Why?”

Sephiroth shook his head, as if he didn’t know the answer himself. Confusion in Sephiroth’s eyes was not an emotion Cloud could ever recall seeing, either pre or post Jenova madness. 

But, you didn’t give an enemy respite. You didn’t allow them the time to figure out strategy. Sephiroth had taught him that the hard way. Besides, sussing out motives and driving emotion had never been Cloud’s strong suit. He wasn’t so much interested in what triggered a man’s actions, as he was in dealing with the aftermath. 

He attacked with a flurry of blows, which Sephiroth met. But not with the total deft destructiveness that Diablo had possessed. There was the slight awkwardness of a man only just beginning to get a true feel for a weapon. Cloud was a bad opponent for such a learning experience. 

Perhaps it was the lack of reach that threw Sephiroth off his game, or the restriction of a blade strapped to one’s forearm instead of held fluidly in the hand, but he missed a parry by a fraction of an inch and barely avoided the edge of Cloud’s blade sliding through his side. Balance off he slipped in loose sand and went down, one knee on the ground and the fingertips of one hand. Cloud leveled his blade, ready for a killing blow and Sephiroth glared up at him, pale eyes glittering through paler hair. 

He didn’t lift the arm blade to block Cloud’s sword tip. Didn’t move an inch, save for the strands of hair that the wind stirred. So much damned hair, spilling over his back and shoulders like rivulets of silver silk, stark against the black of Diablo’s clothing. 

“Go ahead,” Sephiroth urged softly. “Don’t waste your chance.”

Cloud blinked, stands of his own hair clinging to his face. He resisted the urge to lift a hand and brush it back. Distraction would be his downfall. Weakness would. He refused to let the weight of his sword make his arm shake. 

Sephiroth moved his free hand slowly, unfastened the bands of the arm blade and shook it free. It lay in the sand next to him, dull, scarred metal that had likely tasted more blood than Cloud had ever shed. Not by Sephiroth’s hand though. Though Sephiroth had shed copious innocent blood, the stench on the arm blade had a different author. 

“I won’t,” he said, teeth clenched. The point of his blade hovered a bare inch from the notch at the base of Sephiroth’s throat. 

Sephiroth kept staring, unflinchingly. Waiting. Too calm. Cloud swallowed, silently urging him to lunge forward, to make some aggressive move that would justify putting the sword through this throat. As if he needed more justification than the deeds Sephiroth had already done. The death and destruction caused. Cold blooded killer. 

He tightened his fist around the hilt and gathered resolve. 

“That’s right,” Sephiroth said. “It only takes a flick of the wrist. Prolonging it only plays into Shinra’s hands.”

Cloud blinked. “What?”

“You know. Don’t pretend you don’t know, Cloud. You’re no good at lying.” He reached up and grasped the dog tags dangling from the chain at his neck and jerked them free. He held them up by the broken chain, then tossed them into the sand. “Rufus is smarter than his father, I think. More cautious at any rate. What did he do to me?”

“A virus.” What did it hurt telling him? “Directed at the Jenova part of your DNA. He doesn’t want you dead, he wants you in a lab.”

Silver brows drew, lashes fluttered down. The fingers dug into earth. He looked back up finally and there was placid acceptance in his eyes. “But you want me dead.”

Cloud lifted his chin. “You‘ve earned it.”

“Yes, I suppose I have. Go ahead. End it, Cloud.” 

He lifted his hands to the blade at his throat, lying long fingers along the blunt edge, drawing the tip to his skin. Cloud shuddered, allowing it and not knowing why. It was just there was something lacking in Sephiroth’s gaze that made him want to back up and take stock. He needed that gleam of madness to justify the killing blow. 

Without it - - it just seemed too much like execution. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Been working towards this for a while. 
> 
> I'd love to hear what you guys think.


	23. Chapter 23

Chapter 23

Execution. No less than Sephiroth deserved for the lives he'd taken. For the destruction wrought by his hand. Cloud had served as executioner before. By necessity - - by circumstance that always seemed to put him at the eye of the storm. 

Sephiroth's hand on the edge of his blade grew heavier, drawing the point deeper against his skin. A drop of red welled. Crimson against pale skin. His eyes were like molten silver reflecting the blue of the sky. Not a trace of the madness of mako green. 

"Will you end it?" The sound of his voice was like velvet, rough and low and compelling. After everything, so damned compelling. Like he was an addiction that had gotten a grip on him that Cloud couldn't shake. He supposed he was - - had been - - a whisper that had thrilled that little part of Jenova taint that they'd melded into his DNA. 

But not anymore. Not after the cure the planet had offered up, welling like purest benediction in the cathedral in Midgar. There was no compulsion. No niggling urge to do this man's will. Still, his arm didn't waver, the sword held rock steady, unmoving, the very tip making a bloody indent against the pale skin of Sephiroth's neck. 

"It might stick this time," Sephiroth said into Cloud's silent indecision. "Something's changed. Some machination of Shinra's? Go on. I'd rather it be by your hand than end up a rat in his lab."

No more than he deserved, really. After all he'd done. Cloud could still remember, clear as if it had happened yesterday, Aerith's calm eyes, when Sephiroth's blade had pierced her body. And Sephiroth's mad ones, cold and mako laced green. Cloud hadn't understood until then, hadn't really understood the depths of Sephiroth's madness. It had taken him a long time to come to forgive himself for that blindness. 

"Do it, Cloud," Sephiroth urged, devil's voice in his head. "You've bested me and I accept it. I'm proud of you."

Proud? Of him? As if he were still some green recruit that had caught the eye of the esteemed commander. As if he'd done something valiant and noteworthy enough to gain that coveted praise, other than what he'd already accomplished twice over. Same voice, same level, sane look in his eyes that Sephiroth had used to wear back before the Jenova induced madness had claimed him and turned him into a monster that lived to serve the ingrained impulses of a long dead alien. 

Cloud swallowed, mouth dry as the desert dust around them, and for the first time, a tremor racked his arm. He'd played executioner, at his will, at the will of other's and he'd never thrilled at the duty. He couldn't do it now. Not in cold blood with Sephiroth on his knees begging for it. Not with that look of utter sanity in his eyes. 

He let the sword droop, tip striking the hard earth between Sephiroth's knees, breath coming hard of a sudden in dismay at what he was doing. Or not doing. He'd been a fool plenty of times in his life, but this - - this was beyond lunacy. 

Sephiroth canted his head, a few strands of silver hair sliding like living silk off the curve of one shoulder. Accessing the blade between his legs, then gaze shifting up and accessing Cloud.

"I'm not sure if I ought to be disappointed at your lack of conviction, Cloud - - or encouraged."

"I'm not a murderer," Cloud whispered. "Not like you." 

Sephiroth stared at him, squinting a little at the glare of the rising sun at Cloud's back. "What are you then? Do you even know? What do you want, now that you've played your part in hobbling me?"

Cloud looked away, Sephiroth's gaze utterly mesmerizing, utterly unnerving. "For you to leave me alone. To just leave me alone."

"Poor Cloud. So beleaguered." Long fingers made a trail in the hard earth. The nails were clean and manicured, the hand long boned and strong below the black cuff of the scuffed leather armguard that had been Diablo's. "But I don't think that's what you want. Not really. I don't think you know what it is that you need."

A half mad laugh escaped Cloud. He turned his eyes skyward, the purple of the bad land horizon beginning to lighten with the onrushing dawn. It was surreal, standing here, having a conversation with a man twice dead. With his most dreaded enemy - - the whole of the world's most dreaded enemy - - as if he were some casual acquaintance he happened to pass on the street. _Nice weather we're having. Looks like rain tomorrow_. 

"I'm not one to talk," Sephiroth said softly, interrupting Cloud's little mental slippage. "Finding myself in the midst of a certain lack of direction, myself."

Cloud looked down sharply. Still trying to wrap his mind around a shift in realities that had him reeling. Rufus had hoped his little virus would neutralize the Jenova genes that were a part of Sephiroth right down to his DNA - - and in doing so, deprive him of that incredible power. A negligible side effect if it took away the voices driving him to megalomaniacal madness in the process. Cloud didn't think Rufus had given a damn if Sephiroth was sane or not when he had him bagged and tagged and bound for a lab. 

"What, no visions of exterminating the pesky population of the planet and using its husk to joyride the cosmos?"

Sephiroth canted his head, a quizzical look in his eyes, a honestly introspective one. He half opened his mouth, shut it abruptly, frowning. "That notion seems - - less alluring - - that it once did. Priorities seemed to have shifted."

Cloud snorted softly, drawing in a shaky breath, feeling the cool of the desert air at dawn on sweat dampened skin. 

"The one constant," Sephiroth said, voice so low, it was almost a whisper. "The one focus that always remained, even during the height of my - - other obsessions - - was you."

He moved then and Cloud tensed, hand tightening on the hilt of his sword, expecting attack, but getting nothing more than the touch of Sephiroth's long fingertips on his thigh. Breath stalled in his chest, body shocked into rare immobility as those fingers traveled upward, enough pressure that he felt it through the material of his pants, nails scraping along the inside seam of his leg, knuckles brushing his crotch. Instead of cringing closer to his body, his balls betrayed him, swelling, his cock twitching, utterly interested in that uninvited touch. 

His hand was numb when Sephiroth rose up to his knees, urging the sword to one side. Words dried up on his tongue. Words of denial, of protest. Of the repulsion that he should have felt. That his mind damned well knew was justified - - but his body - -his body was too damned tired to fight. Or maybe it wasn't all gone, those traces of Jenova taint. Maybe Sephiroth still had a foothold in his head, like he'd had in Diablo's twisted mind. Why else had his limbs turned leaden, his tongue numb in his mouth, unable to utter the simple command to stop? 

Sephiroth's nimble fingers adroitly unfastened Cloud's belt buckle, and the words were a distant undertone to the buzzing in Cloud's head. The utter, unshakable focus of his gaze on Sephiroth's fingers as they popped the button at the top of his jeans free and slid the zipper down. And there he was, straining against the off white of his boxers, body screaming things his mind wanted to block out. Sephiroth leaned closer, sliding his fingers under the edge of Cloud's sweater, finger pads rough and cool against the heat of Cloud's skin. 

"Are you sure that what you want isn't me, begging for the chance of redemption?" Sephiroth looked up at him, black rimmed, silver blue eyes glittering. "Or just me begging?"

His fingers caught at the top of Cloud's loosened jeans, pulling them and the soft cotton of boxers down enough that Cloud's erection bobbed free. 

Cloud drew a breath then, hoarse and ragged, but it was too late by then to make a rational case against. To late to stop it, what with Sephiroth's mouth, wet and warm around the head of his penis. Vision turned white around the edges, flashes of memory, tactile and sensory pelted him from the depths of his subconscious. The feel of Sephiroth's hair, the rasp of his tongue, the taste of his skin, tinged with sweat . . .

He couldn't say stop. He had learned how to fight Sephiroth, but he'd never figured out how to deny him. How to simply tell him 'no', when a part of him _wanted_ so bad he could feel it to the marrow of his bones. Old habits from the days when Sephiroth's attentions had been more valuable than materia. 

The sword hit the ground and he hadn't even realized he'd lost his grip on it. His knees gave out soon after and he folded. Sephiroth followed him down, never loosing contact, sucking him down whole, subsuming the rational part of his mind and leaving only the animal instinct that made him arch his back and dig his fingers into slippery silk hair, urging Sephiroth on. Begging for it with the clenching of muscles and guttural sounds.

Coming was like an explosion of light and power, sensation trilling through his body from hair follicles to toe nails. Maybe if he didn't allow himself to go so long between bouts of allowing himself the gratification of orgasm, it wouldn't have been so overwhelming when it rushed up on him. Saint's knew it must have built to unbearable proportions from the seemingly unending apex that had him arched half off the ground, spasming uncontrollably into Sephiroth's willing mouth. 

When it was over, he collapsed backwards onto hard, dusty earth, thoughts dulled and incoherent, vision reduced to the spots of color dancing at the edges of a bland wash of sky. Sephiroth's fingers on the inside of his thighs were faint traces of sensation after the mind numbing explosion of culmination. 

"If I weren't wearing the remnants of his body," Sephiroth's voice barely got through the white noise in Cloud's ears. "I'd kill the bastard for touching you."

That got through, finally and Cloud squinted his eyes, shifting enough to raise his head and stare down at Sephiroth. 

Common sense began to seep through, and some semblance of bodily control. He got an elbow under him and gave Sephiroth a narrow eyed glare. "As if it weren't your will driving him. And I can settle my own scores."

He was out of breath. Three minutes of sex and he was out of breath. Fighting Sephiroth for an hour had never tired him so. 

Sephiroth lifted a brow, sliding a hand up Cloud's chest and snagging the sweater's zipper. Pulling it down slowly. 

"So angry. Still so angry," he murmured, shifting his weight onto Cloud's lower body enough that he could swipe his tongue across the bared skin of Cloud's chest. 

Cloud's nipples hardened of their own accord. His elbow gave out under him and he fell back to the ground, Sephiroth poised over him, mouth moving to one pebbly nipple and bearing down. Biting, suckling, moving to the sensitive skin at the edge of Cloud's pectoral and scraping teeth along it. 

Cloud shuddered, digging fingers into the dirt, panting as the hard length of Sephiroth's leather clad thigh pressed tight against his recently spent genitals. 

"Diablo's not coming back, you know?" Sephiroth remarked, as he moved his mouth from Cloud's chest to his clavicle. 

"Because you stole his body," Cloud gasped. 

Sephiroth made an amused sound. "You can look at it that way, if you wish. I rather think the world is better off without him."

Cloud snorted at the irony, then shuddered as Sephiroth's hair slithered across a recently dampened nipple. Too good. Too mind-blowingly addictive. And wrong. Absolutely, abysmally wrong. 

"More scars than I remember," Sephiroth remarked, fingers tracing the faint white ridge of a scar running along the ribs of Cloud's left side. "No less beautiful."

His tongue traced the line of it, down to Cloud's hip, to the concave of his belly, while he shifted his weight, lifting enough to draw Cloud's jeans further down his thighs. His penis was half hard again and it spasmed when Sephiroth ran his tongue down the length of it.

Sephiroth leaned back in, one hand on Cloud's stomach, the other sliding between his thighs, finger stroking the skin behind his balls, teasing the pucker of his anus. "Who else have you let touch you?" he purred, whisper soft voice, but there was the edge of steel beneath. "The girl? Vincent?"

That did it. The sex shattered his resistances, had him weak kneed and compliant - - but he knew the edge of a threat aimed at what he loved and it was motivation enough snapped him out of it. Sephiroth had threatened what he loved before and it had given him the strength to destroy him. Neither one of them had swords in their hands now, though, so he settled for snarling, and shoving Sephiroth backwards, off of him.

"None of your business." Cloud rolled to one side, grasping for his pants, while Sephiroth lay in the dust, watching him. 

"Did you think of me while you fucked them?"

Cloud glared, refusing to rise to that bait. He tried to gather the edges of frayed nerves as he refastened his clothing. How much easier if instead of lying there watching him with entirely too interested eyes, Sephiroth went on the attack. 

If Sephiroth had gone into a mad spree of destruction, instinct would have taken over and saved Cloud the trouble of trying to rationally decide how to deal with this most recent resurrection. Violence Cloud could deal with. Violence he understood all too well. Insane Sephiroth bent on world destruction would have been much easier to come to terms with than a disturbingly sane, disturbingly focused-on- _him_ Sephiroth, who was making no reach for weapon's of any sort. 

If Rufus' cleverly delivered virus had done its job - - and it seemed to have done just that - - the traces of the Jenova entity and her adherent powers were gone. For good. Which left Sephiroth no more powerful than your average, everyday, top-tier super Solider. Which still meant damned deadly, but not of the world shattering caliber. 

Cloud snatched his sword off the ground and stalked across the hard packed earth to the jumble of rocks where he'd made his camp before Diablo had attacked him. He slid the sword into Fenrir's mounted sheath. The fire was out. And the only thing he needed to pack up was his bedroll. 

He felt for his phone in the side pocket of his jeans, and felt the shifting of plastic and metal that shouldn’t have shifted. He took a calming breath and dug out the pieces of the cell. Damn. He was going to catch hell for that. Tifa and Cid were going to loose their collective shit when he didn’t call in within a reasonable amount of time. He tossed the pieces in the sand. 

Sephiroth leaned against a ten foot boulder and watched him. He'd fastened the one unshattered arm blade across his back. The pale skin of his shoulders and arms made a sharp contrast to the black of Diablo's shirt and trousers. 

"So," Sephiroth drawled. "You'd leave me to my own devices, to take my vengeances where I might?"

Cloud toed the bike's kickstand up, giving Sephiroth a hard look. "So long as you stay away from my friends - -yes. Rufus deserves what he gets."

Sephiroth's mouth twitched. Amusement, perhaps, at the notion of that retaliation. He stepped forward, into Fenrir's path. "And what of the hornet's nest he stirred with the rabble that followed Diablo? Will you leave them to their own devices as well, bereft of the hand that guided them?"

Cloud frowned, glowering at the long fingered hand that rested on the bike's chassis. That was a damned good point, though. There were a lot of innocent lives on the line with the wastelanders of two continents on the rampage. But he wasn't a peacekeeper, damnit. That was Shinra's responsibility, or the WRO - - or anybody else that had a stake in all those settlements and towns and cities at risk. Cloud had stopped being a minion of the powers that be a long time ago and he had damned sure paid his dues. Sephiroth was walking proof of that. 

He had earned the right to go about his own business, protect what was his and not be dragged into every conflict that threatened. Tifa would take issue with that way of thinking. Barrett probably would. They'd risk their lives protecting Midgar if the wastelanders kept attacking. Maybe even Cid and Vincent would, putting their lives on the line for strangers when things threatened that were beyond the means of normal, untrained people to stop. Damnit. 

Cloud shut his eyes a moment, then looked up at Sephiroth through the fall of his hair. "What do you suggest?"

Sephiroth shrugged, leaning across the bike, eyes boring into Cloud's with unblinking intensity. "I'll take care of the problem."

"You'd do that?" He wanted to look away, but you didn't break eye contact with predators and Sephiroth was so very much on the prowl for something. Not the psychopath of later years, but not the scion of the military elite he'd been before that, either. There was nothing of mako green in his eyes. Just narrow calculation. 

Sephiroth shrugged. "I'm feeling generous. But," he added and Cloud narrowed his eyes suspiciously. "But not until I've had the chance to wash His stench from my skin. Perhaps get a decent meal. Give me a ride to the nearest settlement, sit down and eat with me, share a shower if it strikes your fancy and then we'll deal with Diablo's army."

Sephiroth shifted his hand, fingers grazing Cloud's where they rested on the chassis of the bike. 

Cloud lifted his chin, jerking his hand away, past that bone shaking weakness that had afflicted him the first time Sephiroth had touched him. 

"I'll give you a ride. Period."

Sephiroth shrugged.

* * *

The nearest town was a little desert settlement called Ke'bar. It was about a hundred and fifty miles west of Gold Saucer, less than fifty from where Cloud had made his camp, and a haven for those bold enough to traverse the great desert. Not a huge town, but fortified enough that it wasn't a soft target for the riff raff that lurked in the badlands. 

Its walls were cliff faces, the road leading up to it a zig zag track cut out of the rock. The buildings were domed sandstone that peeked above the craggy edifice of the cliffs that made up its base and its damned near impenetrable defenses. 

Not a huge town, but a compact one, teaming with people, crowded with multi-story buildings and narrow streets between them like ravines cutting through a canyon. 

Cloud maneuvered Fenrir up the cliff face track, having to cling close to the inside wall to allow the passage of various small wagons and motorized vehicles, of boys urging flocks of canny eyed goats and men and women, nomads maybe, with huge packs on their backs trudge past the other way. He was ever aware of Sephiroth's presence at his back. Of Sephiroth's hard thighs behind his, of the occasional light touch against his back. But Sephiroth was good, keeping contact to a minimum, keeping conversation to even less, apparently engaged in introspection that diverted his attention inward. 

Cloud had experienced his share of mental breaks and had anguished over them, but he couldn't quite imagine what he might have done or felt if he'd come out the other side of a bout of stark raving lunacy that had almost destroyed a world. That had certainly destroyed no few lives. He didn’t want to imagine it, Sephiroth’s state of mind. He didn’t want to think about Sephiroth any more than he absolutely had to. Easier just to fight him. That took no thought at all. Simply instinct. 

Travel slowed down to a snail's pace once in Ke'bar proper. The streets were too narrow, too crowded to weave in and out of traffic. It was a constant stop and start progression through the maze like warren of avenues to the little hostel that a merchant at the town entrance had suggested they might try for cheap rooms and good food. Cloud had never been here. If Sephiroth had, he made no mention. Though he did, when Cloud almost passed it, point out the weathered sign of the hostel carved into the sandstone over the door of an aged, decrepit building. 

Sephiroth swung off before Cloud had fully stopped, rotating his shoulders, gathering his wind blown hair and pulling it off his neck and into a tail that he draped across one shoulder. A lot of damned hair to have to deal with on a daily basis, Cloud thought, and a good sign that Sephiroth's vanity had always been an overdeveloped thing, for him to have kept it all those years. 

"Is there a garage nearby?" Cloud asked of a boy loitering near the hostel door, who tore wide eyes away from Sephiroth, who was garnering no few glances from the dark skinned, dark eyed, smallish people who walked past. Tall, silver haired, black leather clad, and pale skinned was a bit of an enigma here. Apparently darker skinned blondes with mammoth motor cycles got second glances as well, because the boy gaped at the bike like he'd never seen its like. That, Cloud could understand, and appreciate a small tinge of self-satisfaction at. Fenrir was no ordinary bike and he'd gone to a lot of trouble to make it so. If he was proud of anything it was that bike. 

The boy pointed down the street and Cloud followed his direction to a small garage already cramped with various vehicles. A handful of gil got Fenrir a space at the back out of the way of incoming and outgoing traffic. 

When Cloud was satisfied with the safety of the bike, he weeded his way back down the street towards the hostel. Sephiroth was already inside, back to the stone counter, idly picking at dirt beneath his nails. The girl behind the counter had a hard time taking her wide eyes off him when Cloud stepped up. 

He got a chin jerked at him and an idle command from Sephiroth. “Pay up.”

“Ten gil,” the girl said, transferring her eyes from Sephiroth for a second to take in Cloud. He took a breath, annoyed at the presumption. 

“What, Diablo have no spare change in his pockets?”

The corner of Sephiroth’s mouth twitched, maybe amusement. Maybe scorn. Who knew? He continued the inspection of his nails. 

Cloud hissed a little breath out between his teeth and slapped the gil on the weathered counter. The girl slid over a single room key with a clunky wooden chip connected to it. 

He looked at it, then up at Sephiroth and said simply. “No. Two rooms, or you sleep on the street for all I care.”

Sephiroth seemed less interested in that declaration than the inn keep, who stared with wide, curious eyes between the two of them. Cloud turned his glare to her, slid another ten gil onto the counter and growled. “Tell me you have another room.”

She did. He stalked up the narrow stairs with his own room key, leaving Sephiroth to his own devices. He’d provide a room for the night, but that was as far as he was willing to go. He’d gone too far already. Far enough that he doubted the state of his own sanity. Maybe exhaustion had driven him to that break with rational. 

He was tired. So damned tired that his knees quivered a little going up the stairs. How many days had he been running on overdrive? He’d lost count. They’d started to blur a little some while back. Saint’s he was tired and he didn’t have his phone to let the people that mattered know he was alive and well. People that would worry and rightfully so, all things considered. The last thing he needed was them tracking him down and happening upon a newly resurrected Sephiroth. 

He planted his back against the door of the cube-like room he’d been allotted and laughed, low and desperate, as he imagined how that reintroduction might go. What was Sephiroth now? Cloud hadn’t a clue. If the Jenova ‘ _infection_ ’ had truly been eradicated by the virus that Cloud himself had delivered to Sephiroth’s host - - then what? Did that lack of elemental madness that had driven him to do terrible things - - world shattering things - - make him less of a coldly calculating bastard? There was no wiping of things Sephiroth had done off his karmatic slate. No cleaning the blood he’d shed off his hands. Even if he had been as much of a puppet in his own way as Kadaj had been. Or Cloud. 

It made his head hurt. He didn’t want to think about it while his body ached and his mind reeled. Just a little rest and maybe he could figure out how to approach this problem when he could talk to calmer heads. Not that there were that many people who could look at this dilemma calmly. Vincent maybe. 

With the foundations for that plan laid, he pushed off the door towards the narrow bed. An hour’s sleep and then a shower and then maybe he could think with a clear head again. Just maybe. 


End file.
